Case Study: PhonePe vs Google Pay, Two Brands on the Same Rail

By Yamm Labs · Updated September 2026 · 11 min read

At a chemist’s counter in a Gurugram market, two QR standees lean against the glass. One is purple. The other carries Google’s four colours. A customer scans whichever is closer, enters a UPI PIN, and a speaker on the counter reads out the amount. The money travels over the same national rail either way. Before the customer taps pay, either app has to show the same thing: the merchant’s name as it sits in the bank’s records. The product is identical by design. So why does one brand end up in more pockets than the other, and what does that tell a bank, insurer or fund house whose own product is shaped just as tightly by a regulator?

Who are PhonePe and Google Pay, and what rail do they share?

UPI is India’s real-time account-to-account payment system, operated by the National Payments Corporation of India. Banks connect to it directly. Non-bank apps such as PhonePe and Google Pay connect as third-party application providers, which means every payment they initiate runs through one or more partner banks. Any UPI app can pay any UPI ID.

PhonePe’s own company page records that Flipkart acquired PhonePe in 2016 and that the PhonePe app went live the same year. Its August 2026 press releases describe PhonePe Limited as a company that builds platforms for payments, digital distribution and financial services, with more than 71.5 crore life-till-date registered users and an acceptance network of over 5 crore merchants as of July 2026. Its press page lists 11 billion customer transactions in July 2026.

Google Pay sits inside a much larger master brand. Its India page introduces the product as money made simple, by Google, and pitches it as the simplest way to send money home, recharge a phone or pay the neighbourhood chaiwala. Google does not publish a comparable India user count on that page, so we do not quote one here.

The scale of the two is on the public record. In February 2024 TechCrunch reported that a parliamentary standing committee had flagged PhonePe at 46.91% and Google Pay at 36.39% of UPI transactions by volume for October and November 2023, a combined share of about 83%. The same committee put NPCI’s own BHIM app at 0.22%. By August 2025, when UPI crossed 20 billion transactions in a single month for the first time, DD News reported PhonePe at about 9.6 billion transactions and Google Pay at about 7.4 billion, with value shares of 48.64% and 35.53%.

Why is differentiation so hard when UPI makes every app do the same job?

The complication is that the regulator and the network operator have taken most of the usual levers off the table. Speed and reach are the same, because the rail is shared and interoperable. Price is hard to use, because Google Pay’s own page advertises sending money with zero fees and customers expect the same everywhere. What is left has to be built inside a rulebook that governs the payment screens themselves.

Four rules shape what either brand can do on the screen where money actually moves.

• The UPI mark sits on every payment screen. NPCI’s BHIM UPI brand guidelines, updated in June 2026, say the “Powered by UPI” logo unit must be used wherever UPI APIs are called, and that a payment app must place it at the bottom centre of the screen on all pages after a transaction is initiated. The bottom of the most important screen is not the app’s to design.
• The lockup is fixed. The same guidelines say the UPI logo must never be merged with or altered alongside a partner’s logo. When the two appear together they need a solid dividing line, the partner logo is held in proportion to the UPI logo’s height, and a clear space of half the UPI logo’s height has to be kept between the logos and the line. No partner may add its own name as a prefix or suffix to the UPI identity.
• The name check is standardised. An NPCI circular dated 24 April 2025 required apps, by 30 June 2025, to show the ultimate beneficiary’s name as it appears in bank records on the pre-transaction screen, and to disable any way of editing that name inside the app. The moment of trust before payment looks the same in every app.
• Growth has a ceiling. NPCI introduced a 30% cap on any single third-party app’s share of UPI volume in November 2020. Business Today reported in December 2024 that compliance for existing apps above the cap had been extended to 31 December 2026, and that bank apps are exempt. On the August 2025 figures, each app held well over 30% of volume, so neither can plan on simply taking more share forever.

So the screens before and after payment carry the network’s mark and a standard name check. The brand has to live somewhere else.

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Which parts of a payments brand does the rulebook fix, and which does it leave open?

The table separates what NPCI or RBI rules set, and so is the same for both apps, from what each company chose, using each company’s own published pages.

Three of the seven rows are identical by rule. Those rows cover the moment the customer actually pays. The differences sit in the handle, the parent brand and the product shelf around the payment.

What did PhonePe decide to do on a shared rail?

PhonePe’s published choices point to one idea: be the payments brand first, then use the payment habit to distribute other financial products.

• A name that says the job. PhonePe does not borrow a parent’s name. The word itself pairs the device with the act of paying, and its company page calls it India’s largest digital payments platform.
• Reliability as a brand promise. In its June 2020 release introducing the @ibl handle with ICICI Bank alongside @ybl with YES Bank, PhonePe said working with two banking partners would strengthen the service’s reliability and uptime. It reported over 200 million registered users at the time. In February 2021 it added Axis Bank’s @axl handle and reported over 265 million registered users. A failed payment at a shop counter is a brand event, so spreading load across banks is a brand decision too.
• The merchant counter. PhonePe reports an acceptance network of over 5 crore merchants. On a rail where every app can pay every QR, the standee on the counter is one of the few places a payments brand is seen before the customer opens any app.
• A product shelf around the payment. PhonePe’s own description lists merchant payments, lending and insurance distribution, Share.Market for stock broking and mutual fund distribution, and Indus Appstore. In August 2026 it announced UPI payments for feature phone users. Each extension carries the payments relationship into a category with its own regulator.

What did Google Pay decide to do with the same product?

Google Pay made the opposite bet on naming. Instead of a new standalone brand, the product in India carries the Google name, and its India page leads with that promise directly.

• Borrowed trust. A payments app asks for access to a bank account. Google Pay’s page leans on the parent: it says the app protects money with a world-class security system that helps detect fraud and prevent hacking, and asks users to protect their account with a screen lock such as a fingerprint.
• Everyday language. The page speaks about sending money home to family, recharging a mobile and paying the neighbourhood chaiwala. The positioning is built on ordinary use, not financial vocabulary.
• Rewards as a habit loop. The page promotes scratch cards and other rewards, with rewards credited to the user’s bank account. On a rail with no price difference, a small reward after a payment is one of the few moments an app can make feel different.
• Credit with named partners. The same page offers a Flex credit card and personal loans through lending partners, and it names lenders such as DMI Finance and Bajaj Finance. RBI’s 2025 digital lending directions require a platform that shows loan offers from several lenders to name the lender behind each offer, so naming the lender is a compliance requirement that also becomes part of the brand’s trust story.

The handles show the same pattern. Google’s help page explains that a Google Pay UPI ID can end in @oksbi, @okhdfcbank, @okaxis or @okicici, whichever bank the customer holds an account with. The short “ok” is the only trace of the app in the address. The rest names a bank.

What results can be tied to these brand decisions?

The outcomes that are publicly reported are about scale, not brand. PhonePe’s registered users went from over 200 million in June 2020 to over 265 million in February 2021, by its own releases, and to more than 71.5 crore by July 2026. The two led UPI both in the committee’s late-2023 figures and in August 2025, with PhonePe ahead of Google Pay on volume both times and on value in August 2025.

What is not publicly reported is how much of that gap comes from brand rather than from distribution, merchant sales teams, bank partnerships or timing. We have not found brand tracking or attribution from either company, or an independent study, that isolates the effect of naming, colour or rewards. Anyone who tells you PhonePe leads because of its purple, or that Google Pay trails because of its name, is guessing.

One open question has a date on it. As last reported, the 30% cap deadline is 31 December 2026, about three months from this update. Whether it is enforced, extended or changed is not known at the time of writing.

What should a bank, insurer or fund house in India take from PhonePe and Google Pay?

Most BFSI brands in India work under the same condition as these two apps: a regulator fixes part of the product, part of the screen and part of the advertising. The lesson from this case is to design for that condition on purpose.

• List the fixed screens before briefing any agency. RBI requires a Key Facts Statement, including the annual percentage rate, to be given before the loan contract is executed for retail and MSME term loans sanctioned from 1 October 2024. SEBI’s standard mutual fund warning has to be clear and understandable, both on screen and in voice-over, in audio-visual ads; five seconds is given as an example, not a fixed minimum, and the wording cannot be changed. IRDAI’s 2024 policyholder regulations require every insurer’s advertisement to show its registered name with its trade name or logo prominently, and ads issued by a distribution channel need the insurer’s written approval first. These are the same for you and your competitor, so design them once and stop fighting them in every campaign.
• Build the co-brand lockup into the design system. NPCI’s divider and clear-space rules are a template for any lockup where a regulator’s or partner’s mark sits next to yours. Draw it once, with the spacing in the file, so no campaign ever has to argue about it.
• Put brand effort where the rulebook is silent. For these two apps, that was the handle, the merchant counter, the rewards moment and the product shelf. For a bank it may be onboarding, notifications or the branch. For an insurer it may be the claim update. The colour on those moments matters too, and our note on colour psychology in financial brands covers why so many look alike.
• Decide early whether you borrow a parent’s trust or build your own name. Google Pay starts every conversation with a known name. PhonePe had to build one, and in return owns a name that means only payments. Both can work.
• Do not build the brand story on share alone. A volume cap can change the ground under a market leader. A promise about reliability or clarity outlasts a claim about size.

AI answer engines flatten similar products into one sentence too. Our AI visibility work for BFSI brands asks the same question: what can a buyer quote about you that is not also true of your competitor? Our sectors are on the clients page.

When the rulebook makes the product identical, the brand lives in every moment the rulebook leaves open.

People also ask

Is PhonePe safer than Google Pay, or the other way round?

Both run on UPI under NPCI’s rules, so the PIN step and the bank-record name check before a payment work the same way in each. The practical risk sits with how the customer behaves: NPCI’s brand guidelines tell apps to remind users to enter the UPI PIN only on the UPI PIN page.

Why does my Google Pay UPI ID end in @okhdfcbank when my account is with another bank?

Google’s help page explains that Google Pay issues UPI IDs through four partner banks, SBI, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank, so the handle can end in @oksbi, @okhdfcbank, @okaxis or @okicici whatever bank your account is with. The partner bank connects the app to UPI. Your money still moves from your own bank account.

What is NPCI’s 30% UPI market share cap?

It is a limit on any single third-party app’s share of UPI transaction volume, introduced by NPCI in November 2020. As reported in December 2024, existing apps above the cap have until 31 December 2026 to comply, and apps run by banks are exempt. Check NPCI’s latest circulars, since the deadline has already moved more than once.

Can a bank’s own app compete with PhonePe and Google Pay on UPI?

A bank app runs on the same rail and is exempt from the 30% cap, but it carries its own NPCI branding duties, including showing the BHIM UPI logo prominently on its post-login home page. The payment itself will look much the same as in any other app. A bank’s advantage is the relationship around the payment, such as the account, the card, the loan and the service, so that is where its brand work should go.