PhonePe To Launch UPI App For Feature Phones—Here’s What It Means For You

UPI Payments app PhonePe Limited announced on Friday that it will launch a UPI app for feature phones, while leveraging its GSPay technology.

PhonePe on Friday announced an IP purchase of conversational engagement platform Gupshup's proprietary 'GSPay' technology stack for enabling UPI payments for feature phones.

What Is GSPay?

GSPay is a mobile application which is built on top of nNPCI's UPI payment solution for feature phones (UPI 123PAY).

What Are PhonePe's Plans With GSPay?

"PhonePe plans to customize and extend this recently acquired GSPay IP and launch its own feature-phone based UPI payment mobile app on new feature phones in India, over the next few quarters," the company said in a statement.

This means that consumers can now expect a new UPI payment mobile app on new feature phones in India.

PhonePe aims to provide all basic UPI features like P2P transfers, offline QR payments, and receiving of money from any other UPI customer to their mobile numbers or self-QRs seamlessly, the company said.

Sameer Nigam, Co-Founder and CEO at PhonePe said, "We are excited about acquiring the GSPay technology stack and using it to bring UPI payments to India’s extensive feature phone user base. This segment of users has been historically underserved by the digital financial industry and the broader startup ecosystem. We hope we can enable crores of these feature phone customers to participate in India’s burgeoning digital payments market."

As per industry data, India had approximately 24 crore feature phone users in 2024, and an additional 15 crore feature phone shipments are expected in the next five years.

This is a significant opportunity to bring users who have so far been left out of the digital payments ecosystem into the fold, thereby driving financial inclusion.

Also Read: Bank Stocks Today: Bajaj Finance, HDFC, ICICI And Other Banking Share Zooms After RBI Repo Rate Cut