Walmart-Backed PhonePe Gets SEBI Nod for Landmark IPO

PhonePe Clears a Major Regulatory Milestone: PhonePe has taken a crucial step towards its stock market debut after receiving regulatory approval for its IPO, following a confidential filing made in September. The approval signals that India’s largest digital payments platform is firmly on track for a public listing, potentially by mid-2026, according to sources familiar with the development.

Big Global Investors Likely to Trim Stakes: The IPO is expected to include partial stake sales by marquee investors such as Walmart, Microsoft, and Tiger Global. While PhonePe itself has not commented, the move would allow early backers to monetise a portion of their holdings amid strong conditions in India’s primary markets, which saw record fundraising in 2025.

A Fintech Giant Built on UPI Scale: Founded in 2015, PhonePe has emerged as the largest player on India’s UPI network, commanding over 45% market share by transaction volume as of December 2025. In August alone, it processed nearly 9.8 billion UPI transactions, highlighting the platform’s deep integration into India’s everyday digital payments ecosystem.

Powerful Tools Powering PhonePe’s Ecosystem: PhonePe’s market leadership is built on a tightly integrated suite of digital payment tools. Its UPI platform enables instant, bank-to-bank transfers at massive scale, while QR-code payments power millions of offline merchant transactions across India. The app also offers a digital wallet for quick peer-to-peer and merchant payments, a robust payment gateway that supports online businesses, and a wide range of bill payment and recharge services covering utilities, insurance, and subscriptions. Together, these offerings serve over 600 million registered users and nearly 50 million merchants nationwide.

Policy Tailwinds Strengthen PhonePe’s Position: In 2024, India delayed the rollout of market-share caps on UPI, providing relief to dominant players like PhonePe and Google Pay. This regulatory pause has helped sustain PhonePe’s scale advantage, reinforcing investor confidence ahead of its proposed listing.

Improving Financials Ahead of the IPO: PhonePe’s financials show signs of gradual improvement. The company reported a reduced loss of ₹17.2 billion for the year ended March 2025, compared with ₹19.96 billion a year earlier. The narrowing losses indicate better cost control as the company scales monetisation across payments and financial services.

Why PhonePe’s IPO Could Be a Market-Defining Event: Valued at around $12 billion in its last private funding round, PhonePe’s IPO is expected to be one of the most closely watched listings of 2026. With unmatched UPI scale, strong policy support, and backing from global investors, the listing could mark a turning point for India’s fintech sector and set benchmarks for future digital economy IPOs. This photostory is based on Reuters reporting and publicly available information and is intended for educational purposes only.

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