businesses on board we focus on acquisition retention and share of wealth he says advt payments business has a lot of scope to grow in segments as diverse as daily groceries and public transport says vivek belagavi partnerfintech leader pwc india this gives firms such as phonepe room for growth in an underserved market this next stage of phonepes evolution will see the company evolve into becoming a broader financial services player we will get into mutual funds insurance and other such categories says nigam the ceo of phonepe we also believe that the open banking system will accelerate and we would like to play a role there however the challenge for the firm is to look beyond these relatively lowmargin offerings and make a splash into lendingvivek belgavi partnerfintech leader pwc india says these companies should have a wider offering to become profitable sectors such as lending wealth management and insurance are clear adjacencies for these fintech companies the focus is to use their original business to build a large customer base and then use newer offerings to build a moat around the payments business that is exactly phonepe wants to do leverage the data generated by its businesses to build a distribution pipeline for conventional lenders we are trying to build a fintech super app says nigam this means the payments platform will also be a onestop shop for users uncomfortable visiting multiple apps users on the phonepe app might soon get a window to directly access the services of irctc flipkart and fasoos among others rather than visit each appnigam is confident he has found the customer base there is one set of users primarily in urban india who are familiar with smartphones and are happy dealing with many apps phonepe will be the goto app for all the needs of such usersgame of appssanjay swamy cofounder of early stage investor prime venture partners says smartphones and mobile data are a lot more pervasive in india today but some segments may not be very conversant with downloading new apps and managing their usage and a super app may well appeal to them he adds if these plans fructify phonepes valuations would surge keybanc capital markets a market analyst tracking walmart says the fintech firm could soon be valued at 1415 billion in four years it might be as valuable as its parent flipkart edward yruma of keybanc recently said digital payments at retail stores would grow 20 annually until 2023 and reach 135 billion peertopeer payments will add another 150 billion to phonepes addressable marketwhile flipkarts challenge was carving a path to success phonepes will be finding the right space in a market that has dozens of players some competitors such as paytm and google pay have deep pockets besides as fintech hasnt percolated beyond smallticket online payments getting users beyond the initial 100 million would not be easy some entrepreneurs such as anand kumar founder of paynearby a fintech venture focussed on transforming small retailers into