PhonePe has partnered with the IRCTC to facilitate payments on the IRCTC Rail connect Android app. The partnership will enable PhonePe's 100 million plus users to pay from their bank accounts using UPI, credit, debit cards and also the PhonePe wallet for their travel bookings. The development was reported by the Economic Times. Interestingly, this development comes nearly 4 months after we reported that IRCTC was working on launching its own payment gateway. This was a way for the IRCTC to seek additional revenue and reduce dependency on third-party payment platforms. PhonePe will be able to access a sizeable share of the near 700,000 e-ticket bookings made every day on IRCTC. In May, we reported that of the reported 700,000 bookings, 100,000 or 14% were paid for via Paytm, which made it the leading payment mode for train ticket purchases at the time. Other payment players on IRCTC In February, Razorpay partnered with IRCTC to help customers book train and flight tickets through UPI, in addition to existing payment modes like net banking, wallets and credit/debit cards. Razorpay said it expected to process more than a million transactions a month on the IRCTC website and mobile app. In October last year, MobiKwik’s payment gateway, Zaakpay, partnered with IRCTC’s Rail connect app for users pay through channels like debit card, credit card, net banking, ATM cards, and mobile wallets. But it did not include UPI as a payment option. This was despite Zaakpay having allowed UPI payments through a separate partnership with ICICI Bank. Paytm and PayU also integrated their payment gateways with IRCTC back in September 2016. Previously, IRCTC…
