- by Isha Adhikari
- 01st Sep 2020
25 million small traders to be digitalized by PhonePe
PhonePe will enable digital payments acceptance for over 25 million small merchants over the course of a year, including kirana store owners across 5,500 talukas. The company will hire a 10,000 on-ground fleet for this.
Flipkart-owned PhonePe at present has 11 million offline merchants on its platform, as it looks to go deeper into tier 3 and 4 towns with this expansion. The Bengaluru-based firm will also provide online merchants digital services like receipts and reconciliations through its ‘PhonePe for Business’ app.
This comes at a time when payment firms are looking at kiranas as part of the next phase of their expansion and rushing to install technology solutions at offline retail points. The pandemic-induced lockdown caused severe disruptions in the supply chain, forcing e-commerce behemoths to shift their strategies to hyperlocal and source essential goods from neighborhood stores to deliver to customers.
"Kiranas and merchants across small villages and towns are striving to progress and prosper. We are really excited to partner with them in this journey and take digital payments to the last mile of India across every village and town," said Vivek Lohcheb, vice president - offline business development, PhonePe.
