Google Pay is India's second-largest UPI app, with a market share of 38% and 500+ crore transactions a month. It’s one of the world’s mightiest companies, and yet, we argue that it’s possibly in a vulnerable, strange position. By this, we don’t mean that it will disappear overnight, but that all kinds of competitors are coming for it. Already, its market share has declined from 44% to 37%. It’s an outpost of an empire that’s fighting a global war. And most importantly, the first wave of UPI is over, and the second phase is starting. UPI itself is changing and going through some transitions, and there are questions on whether signs that Google Pay won’t be able to keep up.

Joining hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar in the discussion were two guests with incredible experience in the area of UPI and payments – Abhishek Madan, Vice President of Product at Paytm and Vasisht S Ravichandran, COO at Pop, a new UPI app which is inverting the way we’re looking at UPI and commerce. Vasisht previously also had a stint at Flipkart, where he was Senior Director of Customer Loyalty and Retention before leaving Flipkart to start Pop.

And while the conversation was centred around Google Pay, the discussion also went in the direction of understanding the infrastructure on top of which most of India’s most valuable fintechs are built upon – UPI.

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Anushka Mukherjee. Hari Krishna is the lead writer and researcher for the episode. Rajiv C N, our resident sound engineer, is the audio producer.

P.S. The Ken podcast team is looking for a talented podcast producer and an audio journalist. If you fit the bill or know someone who does, you can apply here.

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