NPCI eyes 100 billion UPI transactions a month soon — Three factors that scaled adoption

When asked what led to the adoption of UPI at scale in India, Asbe shared three factors:

He said that had the government and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) not set digital financial services as an objective, UPI’s massive adoption would not have been possible.

Fintech revolution: He credited fintech firms and their platforms like Paytm and GPay that created a revolution in terms of digital payments in the first two years when NPCI was developing UPI.

Evolution of UPI: Asbe believes the key lies in the constant evolution of UPI. “It is not the same as it was in 2016. The continuous progress is helping UPI grow.”

Reflecting on the credit landscape in the country, he said, “Sachetisaion of credit is coming… We’re now looking at a completely digital onboarding journey.”

He added that acquisition and onboarding costs will be near zero, thanks to digital and that the ecosystem needs to have fully digital platforms by banks to drive this kind of growth.

He also mentioned that NPCI had seen three phases — the first was the innovation DNA, the second was to collaborate with the government and regulator to build the UPI, and the third phase was NPCI 3.0 to become a contributor in the open source format.

NPCI is an umbrella organisation for all retail payment systems in India. It was set up with the support and guidance of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks Association (IBA).