Other nations showing interest in India’s payment ecosystem: FM Sitharaman

India’s success in popularising digital funds by way of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and RuPay playing cards has led to different nations getting in the indigenously constructed payment stack, mentioned Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday.

“Countries today such as Singapore, Bhutan, France’s Lyra, and also many others are seeing the use for RuPay cards and entire UPI. Indistack, particularly the payment stack, has been very well recognised and people are looking to share their thoughts with India. Many of our bilateral engagements with our counterparts today focus on this subject,” she mentioned on the Global Fintech Fest 2022 in Mumbai.

India is reaching out to numerous nations to leverage the stack it has constructed in order that it may be used for wider public good.

UPI has grown in the final two years, fuelled by the pandemic to change into instrumental for digital funds in the nation. In 2021, it achieved a price of $940 billion, which is equal to 30 per cent of the nation’s gross home product (GDP). In 5 years since its launch in 2016, UPI’s compounded annual progress fee (CAGR) progress is 160 per cent in worth. As of July 2022, there are 338 banks reside on UPI platform. In August, UPI registered 6.57 billion transactions amounting to Rs 10.72 trillion, a file in phrases of quantity and worth.

“The digitalisation of financial services in India has made many unbanked Indian citizens, who were previously part of the informal economy, have today become part of the formal sources of accessing financial services. This is why you find an increase in the extent to which UPI is being used, not just in the urban metropolitan areas but also in Tier 2 & 3 cities,” Sitharaman mentioned.

“NPCI is taking UPI international by helping other countries to create their own payment systems. It is also making cross-border payments easier by means of UPI or RuPay cards acceptance for remittance,” she mentioned, referring to the National Payments Corporation of India.

India has led the way in which in constructing an inclusive monetary world by ensuring companies are accessed by way of 4 completely different layers: presence much less, paperless, cashless, and consent, she mentioned.

Through Aadhar, presence much less and paper much less layers have been achieved. India has issued over 1.31 billion Aadhar numbers up to now. The cashless layer has been achieved by the UPI, AePS, and BBPS. The closing factor is the account aggregator framework has been introduced in with a consent layer idea. “These are the four levels through which we have brought inclusion and in a sustainable fashion is very unique to India and that is what is capturing the eyes of the world,” mentioned Sitharaman.

The account aggregator (AA) community, which went reside in September final 12 months, will revolutionise credit score stream for medium and small industries. All main personal and public sector banks have gone reside on the community.

“As of September 2022, 52 RBI-regulated entities including banks and NBFCs are on the AA network. Apart from the banking sector, insurance sector, pension sector, other players are also joining the platform. Number of accounts enabled on the AA network stands at 1.1 billion,” Sitharaman mentioned.