NPCI expects UPI user base to expand to 500 million in next 3 years

The user base of real-time payment system Unified Payments Interface (UPI) expected to expand fivefold to 500 million in the next three years according to National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI), chief executive officer Mr. Dilip Asbe said.

Mr. Asbe added, "UPI has recently crossed 100 million users, making it one of the fastest adoptions of any payments system anywhere in the world. NPCI's objective for the next three years is to expand the UPI user base to 500 million."  NPCI had developed UPI, which is supported by the Reserve Bank of India.

UPI transactions have achieved a new record of approximately 1 billion in October, though the official data for details of payments transaction in terms of value and volume is expected to be released on November 1. Transactions recorded in the month of September stood at around 955.02 million of worth Rs 1.61 trillion (US$ 23.04 billion), as against 93,000 transactions worth Rs 3.1 crore (US$ 0.44 million) when it was launched three years ago in August 2016.

According to Mr. Asbe, "It is encouraging to witness digital payments being widely accepted across the country. UPI's integration with third-party apps and bank support has provided impetus to P2P (peer-to-peer) as well as P2M (person-to- merchant) electronic payments which resulted in this momentous achievement". It is expected that in the next two years, the merchant ecosystem will get digitized with the number of QR codes set to treble to 30 million.

The success of UPI among the people is because of its simple, safe and hassle-free system. It allows the users to transfer money any time across multiple bank accounts, without needing the details of the beneficiary's bank account.

The real-time payment system Unified Payments Interface's (UPI's) user base is expected to expand five times in the next three years to 500 million, this comes when the government is actively giving boost to the digital payments in the country, NPCI chief executive officer Mr. Dilip Asbe said.

This payment platform was developed by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) backed NPCI and has also given other digital payment modes such as wallets, debit cards, credit cards, run for their money.

NPCI also plans to further take UPI network globally, based on the recommendations of the Nandan Nilekani-headed panel report on 'deepening of digital payments'.
"We expect collaboration between fintechs and banks to drive the acceptance abroad. Our focus will always remain on enhancing acceptance infrastructure for digital payments so as to encourage customers towards digital transactions to achieve RBI and government's less cash objective and facilitate faster adoption of UPI," he said.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.