Adani Group to rival G Pay by entering UPI, digital payment business in India

MUMBAI: After wielding dominance in every field they touch, the Adani group is all set to venture into e-commerce, UPI payments and credit card business. Financial Times reports that Adani is preparing to apply for a license to operate on Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India's widely used public digital payment network.

Adani Group is gearing up to take on digital payments giants Google Pay and Mukesh Ambani's Jio Pay with its foray into new business. The company is also in talks with banks, interested in offering credit card services in collaboration with Adani. According to the emerging report, the company is also negotiating talks to offer online shopping through the Open Network for Digital Commerce; an e-commerce network expanding in the country also backed by the government.

India's digital public infrastructure stack, which includes ONDC and UPI, is popular with aspiring consumer technology startups and is attracting millions of customers every month. Adani's new business venture, if approved, will be known as 'Adani One'. In 2022, the company has launched an application called 'Adani One'. The app currently offers travel-related services including hotel and flight reservations.

The company's e-commerce and payment apps will be initially exclusive to its existing customers. The company is highly hopeful about engaging more than a million customers through ‘Adani One’; mostly people in airports, and others who do transactions of gas and electricity bills. Users of Adani One's services can earn loyalty points through bill payments or duty-free purchases and use them for online shopping.

However, the Adani group didn’t comment on the news of their new venture. The business world has fixated eyes on Adani to see how the magnate will fare in the sprawling UPI arena. Gautam Adani is currently the second richest man in Asia.