India’s PhonePe has put its initial public offering (IPO) plans on hold, pointing to geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and instability in global capital markets.

According to a Reuters report, the fintech company will restart the listing process when conditions improve.

PhonePe operates India’s most widely used digital payments app. It processes over 330 million transactions per day, representing nearly half of India’s total Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transaction volumes.

The company had been preparing for a share sale that could have raised up to $1.5bn, providing it a valuation in the range of $9bn to $10.5bn.

Walmart, which owns about 71.77% of PhonePe, is expected to reduce its holding by about 12% through the offering. Tiger Global and Microsoft are also set to exit.

The filing shows the three shareholders plan to sell around 50.7 million shares, while PhonePe will not issue any new shares.

PhonePe chief executive Sameer Nigam was quoted by the news agency as saying: “We sincerely hope for a swift return to peace in all the affected regions. We remain committed to a public listing in India.”

The Middle East conflict has affected investor sentiment, including Indian markets. Primary market activity in India has weakened, with seven of the 11 IPOs launched this year listing below their issue price.

The rupee has also fallen to record lows, while the benchmark equity index has dropped 7% since the conflict began, Reuters added.

PhonePe’s proposed IPO was expected to be one of the largest listings in India’s fintech sector. It would rank behind Paytm’s 2021 listing, which was about $20bn.

Earlier this year, the firm introduced biometric authentication for UPI payments. This enabled users to approve eligible transactions using a smartphone fingerprint or facial recognition.