National Payments Corporation of India, the umbrella organisation for retail payments system in the country, has launched its new online payments solution – Unified Payments Interface (UPI). NPCI expects UPI will leverage trends such as increasing smartphone adoption and deeper penetration of mobile data and will empower users to perform instant push and pull transactions seamlessly which will transform the way people make payments today.
Reserve Bank of India governor Dr Raghuram Rajan launched the UPI along with NPCI advisor Nandan Nilekani, NPCI chairman Balachandran M., its MD and CEO A P Hota, and COO Dilip Asbe.
Raghuram Rajan said the UPI will help in reducing cash based transactions thus making India a cashless digital economy. UPI enables the participants to conduct transactions without sharing their details and credentials, he said.
“With the interoperability of UPI, entities that need to participate can enter into the system seamlessly. In order to bring seamless access to the people from all sections of the society, UPI should offer service to non-smartphone users also,” he added.
NPCI MD and CEO A P Hota said a few banks have gone live with UPI out of the 29 banks that had concurred to provide UPI service to their customers. NPCI is confident that several banks will join UPI this year and the number will multiply further, he said.
Hota also mentioned that NPCI’s focus is in line with RBI’s vision of migrating towards a ‘less-cash’ and more digital society. NPCI has always been at the forefront to innovate and introduce new products and services at par with global standards, he added.
