Pay10 launched its Customer App on the Google Play Store on September 23, offering NPCI-powered UPI payments, a prepaid wallet, instant bank transfers and zero-fee wallet-to-wallet transfers within its own ecosystem.

India’s UPI app market is already dominated by a handful of large players, so a new entrant’s pitch typically has to be about a specific differentiator rather than UPI functionality alone, which is broadly standardised across apps by NPCI’s own infrastructure.

Pay10’s specific bets, zero-fee transfers within its own wallet ecosystem and a tiered KYC system that lets users start with limited verification, are attempts to lower friction at onboarding while still offering a path to full functionality for verified users.

The tiered KYC approach in particular reflects a broader industry pattern: letting new users transact quickly with limits, then requiring fuller verification only once usage or transaction size increases, balances accessibility against regulatory compliance.

Whether a new entrant like this gains meaningful traction will likely depend less on any single feature and more on trust and distribution, since digital payments products succeed largely through habitual daily use, which existing dominant apps have already built up over years.

It enables real-time bank transfers to a user’s own or other bank accounts.

Within the Pay10 ecosystem, users can make instant, zero-fee wallet-to-wallet transfers using a mobile number or QR code.

The company says the platform uses bank-grade encryption to support secure payments.

Pay10 has designed the app around a tiered KYC framework, letting users start with limited KYC and upgrade for higher transaction limits.

Customer support is available through 24/7 human assistance, alongside an AI-powered grievance system.

UPI has become the dominant digital payments rail in India, used for both everyday retail transactions and large-scale transfers.

New UPI-based apps continue to enter the Indian market as digital payments adoption grows.

Smartphone apps (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0