Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, applications have emerged as one of the most preferred payment modes in the country in the recent times. As more and more consumers shift to these platforms for the convenience of cashless transaction, brands too are hopping on to the bandwagon to reach out these users. Quick to identify the vast opportunity, companies are curating special offers and discounts for these applications to attract more customers.

Sharing how UPI applications have evolved as a significant platform to reach consumers, Neha, Chief Marketing Officer, Pizza Hut India, said, "Lately, UPI has gained popularity and has become the preferred mode of payment for a large section of consumers. According to a report by CLSA, the value of digital payments in India will grow three-fold to touch $1 trillion by the financial year 2026.”

“With UPI platforms, brands can make themselves more accessible to customers and make their operations easier. Partnering with UPI platforms becomes helpful as it offers a win-win opportunity for all three entities – the platform, the consumers, and the brand ultimately,” she said.

Talking further about how these applications help brands to increase their user acquisition, Saibal Biswas, Head of Marketing, Partnerships PR, MediBuddy, said, “UPI platforms are used by people on a daily basis, having more than 200 million daily average usages. It is a sure-shot way to solidify your presence and drive greater visibility for the company in the process of building brand awareness. This in turn increases your brand reach and user acquisitions.”

“Most commonly, associations that have in-app integrations wherein users can avail MediBuddy services via the UPI platforms turn out to be the most relevant partnerships. Hosting banners and ads on these platforms gives us very good visibility to a large base of consumers and multiple times due to the high frequency of visits. The rewards space is a great place for extending our offers and driving trials and/or first-brand transactions”, he added.

According to Amit Wadhwa, CEO at Dentsu Creative India, brands constantly look for platforms where consumers are present, and given the way the digital payment has exploded, it’s no surprise that this becomes an interesting destination for them.

“Also, this is the time when the final transaction is happening and hence some interesting offer or discount create an even better pull. I think this is a win-win for the platform as well as the brands.”

Sharing how they help brands reach their target audience and drive in more consumers, a spokesperson from PhonePe said, “Brands leverage PhonePe to drive their brand and performance growth marketing objectives through the large-scale reach of 42+ crore registered users and 19+ crore monthly active users.”

“Apart from the massive platform scale, our biggest differentiator is deep user-level personalization and customer intelligence of ads that have been channelized into data science-led customized targeting of 100+ category cohorts that are built on robust ML models. This helps brands get access to the most relevant audience for their campaign”, they added.

Adds Rashid Ali, Managing Director, Ezeepay, “We are affiliated with reputed corporations such as Yes Bank, Axis Bank, and NSDL. Through our retailers, we provide affiliated corporations’ services and disseminate further to the audience. The audience learns about the banks and the services they offer as a result of this association, which serves as a form of advertisement for them to reach a large number of people.”

Meta and Amazon too have their UPI platforms, offering cashbacks, special discounts, and offers to attract more and more users.

According to Worldline’s 'India Digital Payments Report’ Q2 2022, in Q2 2022, UPI clocked over 17.4 billion transactions in volume and Rs 30.4 trillion in terms of value. Transactions volume and value have seen an increase about 118% increase in volume and over 98% increase in value in Q2 2022 as compared to Q2 2021. The report also stated that in Q2 2022, the top remitter banks were State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank and ICICI Bank. The top beneficiary banks were Paytm Payments Bank, Yes Bank, SBI, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank. However, it should be noted that most transactions are being driven by Third-Party applications riding on the rails of these banks; in Q2 2022, the top UPI Apps in terms of volume were PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm. According to National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI), as of October, there were 365 banks that are live and enabling UPI services while there are 23 UPI applications that are registered with the government body.

Sharing how these platforms work with brands, the Phonepe spokesperson, “We enable brands to drive brand marketing objectives of awareness, recall building, sale season amplification, new product launches, and high-intent traffic generation through billions of impressions on the PhonePe app. Our reward program is a flagship product that helps drive funnel objectives through uniquely designed product flow & highly relevant targeting algorithms based on advanced data science models.”

Neha said, “Pizza Hut has associated with PayTM, GooglePlay, and CRED - some of the key digital solution platforms used today. We roll out offers on these platforms and tweak them depending on the target audience. Efficient collaboration requires assessing the needs of the customer, evaluating their requirements, and putting plans into action accordingly.”

“With most consumer spending taking place on digital platforms today, this association has helped Pizza Hut attain its objective of reaching out to new and younger audiences. Having made a presence on these platforms, we endeavour to use these in the most optimum manner going forward”, she added.

Sharing details of how Ezeepay works with UPI platforms, Ali said, “We generate the majority of our revenue through bank associations because our work entails establishing merchants with whom we collaborate and through whom individuals in rural regions can access services such as cash withdrawal loans and insurance. If the amount is Rs 80, we earn Rs 20 for each transaction.”

Biswas revealed that after assessing their goals and priorities, MediBuddy channels about 3 to 5% of their budget into marketing through associations, adding that this percentage is revised quarterly.

So, as the world continues to transform with many digital technologies coming into place, it will be a substantial space to look out for when it comes to business and the various landscape enabling it.