PhonePe and Visa launch three cardless payment solutions for India

The partners have introduced Tap to Pay, Cross Border Scan to Pay and Smart Accept, aiming to enable cardless consumer payments and smartphone-based acceptance for micro-merchants. Cross-border QR payments will support Visa QR codes in 14 international markets.

— Source publishedWed, 9 Sept, 2026, 13:22 IST·First seen Wed, 9 Sept, 2026, 13:24 IST·Source The Hindu BusinessLine

What happened

PhonePe and Visa launched Tap to Pay, Cross Border Scan to Pay and Smart Accept in India, enabling cardless consumer payments and smartphone-based card

Key facts

  • 3 payment solutions
  • 14 international markets
  • September 9, 2026
  • February 2025
  • 71.5 crore registered users as of July 2026
  • over 5 crore merchants

Why this matters

Payments, POS and merchant-acquiring players should assess partnership or acquisition opportunities in QR interoperability, NFC acceptance and cross-border payment infrastructure as PhonePe broadens its stack.

What to watch

  • Published launch dates, supported Android handset requirements, transaction caps and merchant pricing for each product.
  • Number of Indian banks, Visa issuers, acquirers and merchant categories enabled for Tap to Pay and Smart Accept.
  • Evidence of cross-border payment volumes, active corridors and consumer FX fees in the 14 supported markets.
  • Merchant adoption metrics versus dedicated POS terminals and competing softPOS/QR providers.
  • RBI, NPCI and overseas-regulator guidance on cross-border QR settlement, data handling, KYC and foreign-exchange compliance.
  • Whether PhonePe packages acceptance with credit, loyalty, commerce or accounting products rather than offering payments as a standalone feature.
  • Bundle Smart Accept with PhonePe merchant QR, settlement, invoicing and lending offers to turn payment acceptance into a merchant operating-system proposition.
  • Target travel corridors with high Indian outbound spend and promote Cross Border Scan to Pay through airlines, travel platforms, forex providers and destination merchants.
  • Use Tap to Pay to recruit small merchants that lack POS terminals, with simple onboarding and transparent card-payment pricing.
  • Expand Visa-linked acceptance into online checkout, tokenized credentials and recurring-payment use cases to capture higher-value card flows.
  • Pursue additional network, issuer and international QR partnerships to reduce dependence on any single payment rail and broaden overseas coverage.