UPI needs investments to become more inclusive, says NPCI's Dilip Asbe

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) needs large amounts of investment to make it more inclusive in India, said National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) Managing Director and CEO Dilip Asbe.

Asbe's comments came in response to a question on making digital payments more inclusive in India while in conversation with YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma at the Mumbai edition of TechSparks 2024, India's largest startup-tech summit.

"We need to create... sustainable awareness [and] cashback programme to reach out to the 300 million [people not using digital payments] and get them back in the system," he noted, adding that similar initiatives need to be targeted towards merchants.

"We will need large feet on street—extension of what has been deployed today—to get 5 crore merchants to get them [onboard]," he added, emphasising that capital needs to be deployed by public and private players to enable inclusion.

Banks and fintechs will have to make these investments, and that capital—along with digital payment incentives the government has announced—will make the UPI infrastructure more inclusive, Asbe said.

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"It's important to look at the long-term story, and we have to get it right," he added.

He contended that network effects will eventually make UPI all-pervasive, but to become truly inclusive in five years instead of 15, it'll require an influx of capital.

The total number of UPI transactions processed in FY23 totalled 8,375 crore, up from 92 crore in FY18—an annual CAGR growth of 147% in terms of volume, as per data by the NPCI.

In semi-urban and rural retail stores, UPI transactions rose 118% in terms of volume and 106% in value terms in 2023 over the last year, as per a report by PayNearby.