PhonePe is taking its payments business global, with founder and CEO Sameer Nigam announcing that the company has received its first international licence from the Central Bank of the UAE and will begin local operations in the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) in Mumbai, Nigam said the UAE would be PhonePe\u2019s first overseas market where it will operate locally, marking a shift from the company\u2019s India-focused journey over the past decade. \u201cPhonePe is going global,\u201d Nigam said. \u201cWe just received our first international licences from the Central Bank of the UAE, so PhonePe will be launching operations locally in the UAE as our first foreign market.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nigam described the development as a significant milestone for the company, saying PhonePe\u2019s first 10 years had been focused on building its business in India. \u201cThe last 10 years were about us being only within the country borders. Hopefully, 10 years later, we can talk about a truly global business,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
PhonePe has already expanded UPI payments to several international markets, including the UAE, Singapore, Mauritius, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, France, Qatar and other countries.<\/p>\n
The UAE licence takes that international push a step further, with PhonePe preparing to operate locally rather than simply facilitating UPI transactions for Indian users travelling abroad.<\/p>\n
Nigam said the company also wants to address the needs of an estimated 250 million Indians who still use feature phones.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about the 250 million Indians who still don\u2019t have a smartphone? How do we solve for their inclusion? How do we solve for their ability to make digital payments?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
PhonePe recently launched what Nigam described as the first UPI-based payment solution using the USSD protocol. \u201cWe have become the first UPI app to have launched feature-phone payments using the USSD protocol,\u201d he said, calling it \u201cthe first of this kind of secure payment solution in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n
The company has begun rolling out the service, allowing users to make peer-to-peer transfers to mobile numbers or bank accounts, share their QR codes and receive payments.<\/p>\n
Nigam said around 40% of feature phones in India have cameras, allowing some users to scan QR codes as well. The service also allows users to check their bank balance and transaction history, while bill payments are planned as a future addition.<\/p>\n
PhonePe is also working on a voice-enabled, AI-powered helpline in English and 12 Indian languages to help feature-phone users understand digital payments.<\/p>\n
Nigam also outlined PhonePe\u2019s expansion into financial services, particularly savings, insurance and investments. \u201cHistorically, when you thought of mutual funds, you thought of the stock market. You thought of life insurance. It was something that the affluent could get access to and the underserved were left out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
PhonePe has introduced financial products designed around smaller ticket sizes, including recurring deposits starting at \u20b9100 and mutual fund SIPs starting at \u20b910 a day. Nigam said the company had deliberately designed these products around the way many Indians earn and manage money.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndia runs on a daily basis. The value of the Indian economy runs on a daily working capital. So why should all savings products be monthly or annual?\u201d he said. \u201cWe generally believe that mutual funds and deposits need to be solved for on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
PhonePe has also introduced daily gold savings starting at \u20b910. \u201cIndia\u2019s favourite savings product continues to be gold,\u201d Nigam said, adding that the gold sold through the platform is backed by 24-carat gold and insured.<\/p>\n
On credit, Nigam said the challenge was not simply serving existing borrowers but building products for Indians at different stages of their credit journey. \u201cThere are those who have no credit score. There are those that are afraid of their credit score. And then there is everybody in between.\u201d<\/p>\n
PhonePe has launched credit products including credit cards and loans, while partnering with banks and NBFCs.<\/p>\n
The company has also enabled more than 100 million Indians to check their credit scores, Nigam said, with many of these users looking to understand and improve their creditworthiness. PhonePe offers secured and unsecured loans, including gold-backed loans, vehicle loans and loans against mutual funds.<\/p>\n
Nigam said PhonePe\u2019s financial-services ambitions also extend to India\u2019s small businesses. India\u2019s economy runs on millions of small businesses, he said, while PhonePe has built a merchant network of nearly 50 million businesses over the past decade.<\/p>\n
PhonePe has also introduced merchant lending products based on transaction data. Nigam said the company had already issued more than 1.5 million such loans, with 97% of borrowers taking their first formal loan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PhonePe is taking its payments business global, with founder and CEO Sameer Nigam announcing that the company has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[252669,252667,31764,34927,252671,79584,252672,252670,2306,252673,252663,252662,252664,86,56,54,55,252665,252668,252666],"class_list":["post-765034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-ai-helpline","tag-daily-savings","tag-digital-payments","tag-financial-inclusion","tag-first-time-credit","tag-global-fintech-fest","tag-gold-savings","tag-merchant-lending","tag-mobile","tag-mutual-fund-sips","tag-phonepe-global","tag-phonepe-uae-licence","tag-sameer-nigam","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-upi-feature-phones","tag-upi-international","tag-ussd-payments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}