Update (July 21): PhonePe confirmed to MediaNama that it has partnered with offline chains such as Apollo Pharmacy, Barista, Café Coffee Day, Spencer's, KFC among others. The company has also tied-up with payment aggregator Commdel and is currently running a pilot at Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) fuel stations. It also has a partnership with payments solutions company Pine Labs, through which the company expects to increase PhonePe's acceptance at 15 more national chains across 18,000-20,000 outlets by the end of the current quarter (July-September 2017). Earlier (July 20): Flipkart-owned payments company PhonePe is now entering the offline commerce space, reports VCCircle. Apparently, the offline payment option is already available at over 2,500 Apollo pharmacy outlets and all Barista outlets in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad. While the head of business developments at PhonePe, Pradeep Dodle told ETtech that they've already partnered with Barista, Cafe Coffee Day, KFC, Freshmenu, and Metro Cash & Carry among others. He also informed that interoperable unified payments interface (UPI) QR Code-based payments have also been enabled on PhonePe. PhonePe will now offer short-term loans, along with installing point-of-sale (PoS) terminals at merchant stores. The company claims it will extended this to other major cities by the end of the current quarter (or by September 2017). We've written to them to learn more about this, and will update once we hear back. In regards to offline payments, the 'Offers' section of the PhonePe website already lists Cafe Coffee Day, and in…
