“Can India's largest UPI payments app translate 600M consumers and 35M merchants into a vertically integrated, publicly listed financial services conglomerate spanning payments, lending, insurance, and wealth?”
Founded 2015 as FX Mart, rebranded to PhonePe and acquired by Flipkart (then Walmart) — built India's largest UPI payments app with 600M+ users. Has aggressively expanded from a payments app into a multi-product financial services group: insurance broking, wealth/broking (Share.Market), lending marketplace, and an NBFC-Account Aggregator. The current chapter is becoming a public-listed conglomerate (UDRHP filed January 2026) operating as the financial OS for India.
PhonePe processes payments through PhonePe Payment Gateway (self-operated), PhonePe Payment Aggregator (self-operated) and UPI (self-operated).
PhonePe's cards are issued through SBI Card (co-brand) and HDFC Bank (co-brand).
PhonePe connects to bank accounts through PhonePe Account Aggregator (self-operated).
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 4 layers in PhonePe's stack: Payments / PSP (PhonePe Payment Gateway (self-operated), PhonePe Payment Aggregator (self-operated) and UPI (self-operated)); Card issuing (SBI Card (co-brand) and HDFC Bank (co-brand)); Lending (PhonePe Merchant Lending Platform, PhonePe Personal Loans, Credit Line on UPI, PhonePe SBI Card Credit Card and 1 other); Open banking (PhonePe Account Aggregator (self-operated)).
PhonePe was founded by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer and is founded in 2015, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against PhonePe and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.