Razorpay's 2018 move to power UPI payments on IRCTC rail bookings resurfaces
Resurfacing a February 2018 deal, Razorpay partnered with IRCTC to enable UPI on its website and app, expecting to process over 1 million transactions monthly. The deal rides 40% UPI growth and 151M January transactions, deepening digital payment adoption across Indian rail travel.
What happened
Razorpay partners with IRCTC to enable UPI payments on its website and app, expecting to process over a million transactions monthly, boosting digital payment
Key facts
- 1 million transactions/month
- 151 million UPI transactions in January
- 40% UPI growth
- 65,000 businesses
- 2 lakh merchants by 2018
- 500 million consumers by 2020
- 30-35% MoM growth
Why this matters
This partnership signals Razorpay's push into government-adjacent, high-frequency verticals—watch for similar transit and public-service payment integrations as consolidation targets.
What to watch
- Monthly transaction disclosures crossing/missing the 1M mark
- Peak-window (tatkal) uptime and failure-rate reports
- NPCI market-share cap enforcement affecting UPI app routing
- MDR policy signals from RBI/government on UPI monetization
- Expansion announcements into IRCTC tourism/catering verticals
- Rival PSPs (PhonePe, Paytm, Cashfree) chase other large public-sector transaction hubs (utilities, transit, state portals)
- Razorpay markets IRCTC as anchor reference to win adjacent government/PSU mandates
- IRCTC likely negotiates multi-PSP redundancy to avoid single-point dependency
- Razorpay pushes value-added monetization (subscriptions, TDR refunds, EMI) to offset zero-MDR UPI