Google, Walmart Help Drive India Payments Past 1 Billion Transactions
- Walmart, Paytm and others also vie in thriving payments market
- Competition is expected to intensify in Indian digital wallets
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A payments platform created by India’s largest retail banks surpassed a billion transactions in October, a milestone that affirms the tremendous growth of services offered by U.S. giants from Walmart Inc. to Amazon.com Inc. and Google.
Indian digital payments took off when the government pushed demonetization in 2016, invalidating most of the country’s high-value currency notes in a move to curb corruption and push Indians away from cash. The Unified Payments Interface or UPI has now surpassed a 100 million users three-and-a-half years after its launch, thanks to booming smartphone use and wireless data rates among the lowest in the world.