PhonePe plans to hire over 20,000 frontline sales staff and deploy more than 50 lakh payment devices nationwide to deepen its reach in rural markets, aiming to boost financial inclusion and merchant acceptance in India’s Tier 6 regions.
PhonePe is preparing a major push into rural India, with plans to hire more than 20,000 frontline sales employees over the next 12 months and roll out more than 50 lakh payment devices across the country. The expansion is designed to deepen the company’s merchant network in smaller towns and villages, including Tier 6 markets that have so far seen less digital payment penetration.
According to a company announcement reported by several publications, the new recruits will be placed on the payroll and tasked with merchant onboarding, know-your-customer checks, device installation and after-sales support. The hardware rollout will include SmartSpeakers and point-of-sale terminals, with roughly half of the devices earmarked for rural areas. PhonePe says the effort is aimed at bringing more small businesses into the formal digital payments system and widening acceptance beyond India’s major urban centres.
The company has linked the plan to India’s revised merchant discount rate framework for certain unified payments interface transactions. It says the change gives it room to invest over a longer horizon in merchant expansion, while a dedicated pool using 5% of MDR collections has been set aside for small-merchant growth in deeper rural geographies. PhonePe has also pointed to labour code changes introduced last year, saying they have made it easier to scale on-roll hiring with fewer compliance hurdles.
The expansion builds on a network that PhonePe says already spans more than 72 crore lifetime registered users and over 5 crore registered merchants as of August 2026. Beyond payments acceptance, the company argues that a larger base of digitally active, KYC-compliant merchants could improve visibility into business activity and help eligible firms gain access to formal financial services, including credit. That outcome remains a company expectation rather than a guaranteed result, but it underscores how the fintech group is positioning the move as both a growth strategy and a step towards broader financial inclusion.
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