Adani EnterprisesIndia's Adani Group is considering applying for a license to operate on the country's public digital payments network and is in talks with banks to finalize plans for a co-branded credit card, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
The consumer expansion plans come as billionaire Gautam Adani's ports and power conglomerate looks to spend $84 billion on infrastructure over the next decade.
If approved, the group would enter India's fast-growing digital payments market, competing with incumbents Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe.
According to a Mordor Intelligence report, India's payments market is expected to reach $814.43 billion by 2029, up from $357.51 billion in 2024.
According to April data, PhonePe is the largest UPI app in India with a 48.9% market share, followed by Google Pay with a 37.7% share.
Adani Group did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the reports.
The group is also reportedly in talks to offer online shopping through the Indian government-backed public e-commerce platform, Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).
Once finalised, the service will be available through Adani's consumer app, Adani One, which was launched in December 2022, the report added.
The conglomerate is trying to recover from a report published in January 2023 by US short seller Hindenburg which triggered a sell-off of the group's listed shares.
The report accused the group of stock manipulation and the misuse of tax havens, allegations it denies.
A court-appointed committee said in May 2023 that India's market watchdog had “nothing to uncover” about the case, while the country's Supreme Court said in January this year that no further investigation was needed.
So far, four of the seven group companies are above pre-Hinderburg report levels, including Adani Enterprises' intraday recovery on Friday.
The flagship company's shares are currently trading about 4% below their pre-report levels.
Google invested $350 million in Flipkart as part of a funding round led by Walmart, raising the valuation of the company to more than $35 billion. Flipkart has partnered with Google Cloud since 2022. Flipkart, which competes with players such as Amazon and SoftBank-backed Meesho to cater to increasingly digital customers, has been leveraging Google's cloud stack to expand its tech capabilities and reach a wider audience.
