India’s digital payments ecosystem may be heading toward its next major power struggle. Global technology giants Amazon and Meta are reportedly joining smaller fintech players in lobbying Indian regulators to curb the dominance of Google Pay and PhonePe in the country’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) ecosystem.
According to recent industry reports, PhonePe and Google Pay together command nearly 80% of India’s UPI transaction volume, leaving smaller players struggling to compete.
PhonePe, backed by Walmart, continues to lead the market with billions of monthly transactions, while Google Pay remains its closest rival. Their dominance has raised fears among competitors that India’s open digital payments infrastructure is becoming increasingly centralized.
Smaller UPI platforms, including Amazon Pay, Navi, Cred, and others, are now expected to collectively pressure NPCI to implement stronger measures that would ensure a “level playing field.”
The proposed discussions reportedly include demands for stricter enforcement of market-share caps and policies that could redistribute transaction volume more evenly across apps.
The involvement of Amazon and Meta highlights how strategically important India’s payments market has become for global tech firms.
Amazon has steadily expanded its fintech footprint through Amazon Pay, integrating payments deeply into its e-commerce and services ecosystem. Meta, meanwhile, has been pushing payments through WhatsApp Pay, leveraging the enormous user base of WhatsApp in India.
India represents one of the world’s largest digital payment opportunities. With rising smartphone penetration, government-backed digitization initiatives, and widespread QR-code adoption, the country has become a testing ground for global fintech ambitions.
However, despite their scale, both Amazon Pay and WhatsApp Pay have struggled to significantly dent the dominance of PhonePe and Google Pay.
The issue of limiting dominance in UPI is not new.
NPCI had earlier proposed a 30% market-share cap for third-party UPI applications to prevent monopolistic control. However, implementation deadlines have repeatedly been extended due to fears of disrupting the payment ecosystem.
The regulation was designed to ensure no single app controlled an overwhelming share of transactions. Yet enforcing such a cap has proven complex because of the sheer scale of UPI usage in India.
