PhonePe's Sameer Nigam On Next Decade Of Fintech

"True Progress Isn't Measured By How Fast The Top 10% Move"

To kickstart the session, Sameer spoke about PhonePe's core philosophy and its focus on inclusive growth.

He said, "True progress isn't measured by how fast the top 10 per cent move — it is measured by whether we leave anyone behind. Over the past decade, PhonePe has operated as a technology pioneer charting India's progress. Every product across our ecosystem has been thoughtfully crafted to honour our core purpose — removing friction from progress and ensuring that financial security and growth belong to everyone."

He added, "Real financial inclusion was never about building a product based on socio-economic strata. It's about building one system, flexible enough to meet every Indian exactly where they are."

Breaking Down Smartphone, Bank Account And Border Barriers

He further highlighted that PhonePe has worked alongside NPCI to systematically break down the "walls" — smartphone, bank account, and border barriers that have historically kept people out of the digital economy.

Talking about addressing the hardware barriers that have historically locked over 20 crore feature phone users out of the digital economy, Sameer highlighted the rollout of UPI 123Pay.

He noted that this non-internet, SMS, IVR, missed-call, and voice-based technology stack brings the complete power of UPI directly to feature phones, with over 8 lakh enabled devices already shipped in partnership with leading OEMs.

He also spoke about how products like UPI Circle are allowing primary account holders to safely delegate spending to dependents, making digital payments a household habit. Finally, breaking the border barrier, Sameer shared how PhonePe has expanded UPI for travellers in countries like Singapore, the UAE, France, and Nepal, while enabling seamless payments for 35 million+ NRIs via NRE/NRO accounts.

Micro-Investments: The "Sachetization" Philosophy

Touching upon the democratisation of wealth and savings, Sameer introduced PhonePe's "Sachetization Philosophy." Comparing it to the accessibility of a Rs 2 shampoo sachet, he elaborated on how the platform is turning heavy financial commitments into simple, everyday habits for daily-wage earners and small businesses. This includes flagship innovations like the PhonePe Daily FD, allowing users to start a bank-grade Fixed Deposit with as little as Rs 100 a day, alongside daily Gold, Silver, and Mutual Fund SIPs that start at just Rs 10.

Addressing the need for guidance in the investment space, he introduced CRISP — a tool providing users with real-time market clarity, while noting that the platform also scales seamlessly to support High Net Worth (HNW) users with lump-sum investments and F&O trading.

AI-Driven Credit For The Underserved

Addressing the critical need for reshaping credit access at scale, Sameer shared how PhonePe's AI-driven underwriting now enables loan disbursals in just 2.5 minutes.

Highlighting the system's previous gaps, he noted, "A vegetable vendor who has made Rs 800 in disciplined daily sales for five straight years, with a payments trail to prove it, remains nearly invisible to traditional credit scoring."

PhonePe is dismantling this by using daily settlement history as a credit score for automated daily-repayment merchant loans.

He emphasised that the company is extending credit to millions of users without a prior score, highlighting the newly introduced Wish Credit Card, which helps first-time borrowers build credit starting with a simple fixed deposit, alongside premium offerings like RuPay Credit Cards on UPI in partnership with SBI and HDFC.

New Tools For The Merchant Ecosystem

Expressing excitement about unlocking progress for the merchant ecosystem and the broader economy, he introduced an integrated suite of intelligent tools aimed at driving scalable growth. An anchor to this is the rebuilt PhonePe Business App, serving as a gateway to hyperlocal online advertising, personalized market insights and no-code payment setups.

The ecosystem includes SmartConnect & SmartStore, Physical Store Innovations and PhonePe Payment Gateway Innovations, which offer a data-driven CRM, loyalty engines, smart speakers and AI audio alerts leveraging AI-driven voice synthesis to deliver personalised audio payment alerts in iconic celebrity voices, featuring Smartpages, among other key features.

PhonePe Pulse Pro: Hyperlocal Intelligence

Concluding the session, he presented PhonePe Pulse Pro, a hyper-local intelligence platform fuelled by over 11 billion monthly transactions, which delivers insights mapped down to a 40-square-metre cell to empower businesses and policymakers to make strategic growth decisions.

(With inputs from IANS)