Aatmanirbhar Champion 2022 conferred to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)

NPCI has been at the forefront of revolutionizing payments and settlements in India. Its UPI (Unified Payments Interface) has been a trailblazer in injecting a massive advantage of speed and seamlessness into the Indian payment space. In a short span of time, UPI has emerged as the dominant and preferred mode of digital payment—offering a fast, secure, and seamless experience.

This is a remarkably fast and smooth achievement given the complexity and heterogeneity of the Indian financial landscape and the still-evolving digital footprint of the country.

NPCI has been innovating on, and bringing out, many positive disruptions in the country’s financial and payment realm—from RuPay to Bharat Bill Payment System to BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money).

With RuPay, NPCI ushered in a robust card scheme designed to offer payment products with superior features and processes specifically designed to cater to diverse consumer needs. NPCI has played a huge role in creating fundamental blocks like e-KYC, National Automated Clearing House and the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System.

The entire industry and overall level of customer experience changed with the possibility of real-time KYC of a customer using Aadhaar authentication. With the Clearing House, NPCI unlocked the doors of a centralised payment system. It also leveraged, and built upon, the massive work done on Aadhar by creating a bank-led model for online financial inclusion transactions at micro-ATMs through the business correspondent of any bank using the Aadhaar authentication. Other noteworthy initiatives are the National Financial Switch and the Cheque Truncation System.

NPCI has also created impactful intersections with the transport and infrastructure development in the country through execution of National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC FasTag) and Bharat BillPay. This is a crucial contribution to nationwide accessibility at minimal cost in furtherance of India’s aspiration to be a fully-digital society.

UPI has turned into one of the most inclusive modes of payment in India with over 250 million unique users and five crore merchants on the platform. The capability of facilitating inter-bank transactions using a smartphone and utilizing it for real-time payment processing- stems a lot from smart execution of technology ingredients.

Bharat Bill Payment System collaborated with FAARMS to enable the recurring payments facility for all the farmers across India. This could allow farmers to easily access a complete spectrum of products and services that include seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, animal feed, and more products delivered right at their doorstep. It was also a good pillar for creating a marketplace for the farmers across India wherein they can purchase products as well as manage various recurring payments like electricity, loan repayments, water bills, etc. on the same app.

Now NPCI is adding a strong traction to RBI’s move – it is all set to combine the convenience of both by offering customers instant payment experience of UPI with the benefits of short-term credit and rewards offered by credit cards. The linkage of credit cards with UPI will raise acceptability as UPI provides customers with more points of acceptance through the vast network of asset-light UPI QR code. This will also expand reach to merchants in semi-urban areas, as card point-of-sale terminals are not widely available.

What is also fresh in an otherwise-proprietary product industry is the move towards open source. BHIM App open source license model will see it being licensed to regulated entities participating in UPI ecosystem, who do not have UPI app of their own, to empower them to launch their own UPI app.

It is evident now that NPCI has used technology not just for injecting speed and homegeneity in an erstwhile-fragmented and slow landscape but has also used technology as a core strategy nucleus that shapes completely path-breaking models. This approach and execution-expertise have been used by NPCI in a consistent way to leapfrog India on the global map. It accelerates the country’s digital momentum till the hinterland and last miles. Now our global counterparts are looking at India for learning how UPI is propelling the country on a new financial super-highway.

We are proud to present this award to the backbone of the Indian digital payments system.