India's three-way payment licence: Indian payment giant PhonePe launches zero-fee app shop

Recently, Indian fintech startup PhonePe announced the launch of its own app shop platform - Indus AppStore.

According to the official announcement, the Indus AppStore developer platform offers developers a free offer for the first year and a nominal annual fee thereafter.Indus AppStore does not charge developers any platform fees or commissions for in-app payments. Developers are free to integrate any payment gateway of their choice into their apps.

Akash Dongre, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Indus AppStore, said that despite the large market, Indian app developers have been forced to work with only a single app shop to distribute their apps.Indus AppStore aims to provide app developers with a reliable alternative to the Google Play Store as a reference, offering a more localised solution to enhance app discovery and user engagement.

The platform aims to provide developers with an alternative distribution channel into the Indian Android market. The app shop supports a number of features relevant to the local market, such as third-party payment providers, 12 Indian languages (a feature that is particularly valuable given that India is one of the world's multilingual countries), and a phone number-based login system.

In May, PhonePe announced a new $100 million investment round from General Atlantic, bringing the total external funding for the $12 billion market cap fintech giant to $850 million.PhonePe, which spun off from e-commerce giant Flipkart last year, now dominates transactions on the UPI network set up by India's Retail Banks Association UPI is the leading online transaction method in India, processing over 8 billion transactions per month. The Indian payments market is highly concentrated with Google's GPay and PhonePe processing over 80% of UPI transactions. This new funding will support PhonePe in expanding its product line. Earlier this year, the startup launched a hyperlocal commerce app called 'Pincode', backed by the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and endorsed by the Indian government.