PhonePe, a Bengaluru-based digital payments and financial services company, has won the first position in the Digital Payment Awards 2025, given by the Department of Financial Services, the Ministry of Finance, and the Government of India. The company won the award for outstanding performance in building offline infrastructure for digital payment acceptance. 

The award was presented at the Digital Payments Awards ceremony at Vigyan Bhawan on 18th June 2025. The recognition aims to recognize and strengthen the nation’s digital payments ecosystem. Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, and Shri Pankaj Chaudhary, Minister of State for Finance, graced the event. 

Digital Payments Award 2025: Recognizing Efforts 

Smt. Sitharaman acknowledges the efforts of all the stakeholders who have so far helped in shaping the face of India's fintech industry today. Recognizing the role of people in adopting fintech, she said that India's digital payments success story is a collective effort of all the stakeholders. She underlines India’s 87 percent fintech adoption rate compared to the 67 percent global rate to highlight the milestone.

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Further, applauding India's success story, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman says that India has achieved an 80 percent financial inclusion rate in just 6 years, which in the normal course would have taken around 50 long years.

Digital Payments Award 2025: PhonePe's Leadership Team Accepts the Award 

PhonePe's leadership team, Co-founder & CEO Sameer Nigam, CBO (Consumer Payments) Sonika Chandra, and CBO (Merchant Business) Yuvraj Singh Shekhawat, accept the award from Hon’ble Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman in the presence of Hon’ble MoS Shri Pankaj Chaudhary and DFS Secretary Shri M. Nagaraju.

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Digital Payments Award 2025: Key Categories 

A total of 10 awards have been presented to top-performing banks for their achievements in key parameters such as digital payment transactions, merchant acquisition, frauds and grievances, acceptance infrastructure, product innovations, and system resilience in FY 2024-25. 

Additionally, 11 awards were conferred upon leading fintechs in three categories: Emerging Third-Party Application Providers (TPAPs), Digital Payments Acceptance Infrastructure, and Technical Service Providers.