PhonePe will hire more than 20,000 frontline sales personnel over the next 12 months as it expands its merchant base across India. The hiring will be crucial to take digital payment infrastructure to smaller towns and villages in rural areas, particularly Tier 6. PhonePe announced its merchant network and payment infrastructure expansion on September 24, 2026.
Besides the planned recruitment, PhonePe is also going to install over 50 lakh payment devices in the next year. The devices will include SmartSpeakers and point-of-sale (POS) machines used by merchants to accept and manage digital payments. About 50 percent of these devices are expected to be deployed in rural India. The expansion is aimed at increasing digital payments acceptance in smaller towns and villages where merchant infrastructure is still being developed.
The new frontline workforce will play a key role in expanding PhonePe’s merchant network. We expect employees to reach merchants in small towns and villages, assist businesses to join the digital payment ecosystem, complete Know Your Customer (KYC) processes, install payment devices, and provide ongoing support. PhonePe will expand the on-ground presence for small businesses outside India’s big cities to gain access to digital payment services.
The company also tied its expansion plans to the recently unveiled Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) framework. PhonePe said the framework provides greater scope for long-term investment in merchant expansion. It also pointed out a dedicated fund using 5% of the MDR money collected for small-merchant expansion, particularly in deeper rural markets and Tier 6 towns and villages.
PhonePe also highlighted the importance of India's new labour codes, saying streamlined compliance requirements are helping companies onboard large on-roll workforces more efficiently. So the planned hiring is not only an expansion of the company's merchant-facing operations but a massive increase in its direct frontline workforce.
The recruitment programme is coming as India’s digital payments ecosystem is expanding beyond the big city. UPI and other digital payment methods are well-known in the country, but building payment acceptance infrastructure for smaller businesses is a key part of the next phase of digital financial adoption. PhonePe’s investment is to be made to address this need by hiring more people and deploying payment devices on a large scale.
A more robust on-roll sales staff would also facilitate reaching more small merchants and supporting them in the transition phase. The assistance to companies is around KYC, payment management, and payment services for merchants to continue to use digital payment services. This approach is particularly applicable in rural areas where direct on-ground assistance can be useful in getting businesses to take the leap to new payment technologies.
PhonePe’s expansion could also bring more small businesses into the formal financial ecosystem. A digitally active and KYC-compliant merchant network can give more visibility into business activity and potentially help eligible merchants access formal financial services, including credit from lending institutions, the company says.
The scale of the planned device deployment is also significant. More than 5 million payment devices will be installed over the next year, half of which will be targeted at rural India. That would help to build out the digital payment acceptance in a wider range of locations and the infrastructure for merchants in smaller markets.
PhonePe has more than 72 crore registered users and an acceptance network for digital payments of over 5 crore merchants as of August 2026. The company's current hiring and infrastructure strategy is to further expand that merchant reach, with particular attention to Indian smaller towns and rural areas.
PhonePe’s plan to hire more than 20,000 frontline sales personnel over the next year is part of an overall effort to increase merchant-facing digital payment infrastructure in India. With the simultaneous deployment of more than 50 lakh payment devices, the company is targeting deeper penetration in rural markets and Tier 6 towns while expanding support for small businesses to enter the digital payments ecosystem.
