Amazon and Meta are stepping into India’s UPI arena, not through standalone launches, but by joining a powerful lobbying effort to break the decades-long dominance of PhonePe and Google Pay . Here’s a look at what’s driving this push and how it could reshape India’s digital payments landscape.

The segment, which started as an on-demand and ‘instant’ model, first saw an impact on some services in a few micro-markets as several workers returned home due to assembly elections in West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, as well as for the harvest season in agrarian states . According to a Morgan Stanley report, the segment clocked 10 million monthly users in March . However, across several micro-markets in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, 15-minute bookings have become unavailable for days and even near-term slots have turned grey .