Leading light


Taking India’s G20 Presidency as an opportunity to showcase the country’s digital public goods to the world and its ‘Digital India’ initiative, the central government has decided to provide hands-on experiences to around 1,000 visiting foreign delegates with UPI wallets technology, besides explaining them about ease of making payments through the indigenous solution.

“Foreign delegates or participants will be given Rs 500-1,000 in their UPI wallets for doing UPI transactions,” a government official said adding it has earmarked around Rs 10 lakhs for it. Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is India’s mobile-based fast payment system, which facilitates customers to make round-the-clock payments instantly, using a Virtual Payment Address (VPA) created by the customer.

UPI payment system has become hugely popular for retail digital payments in India, and its adoption is increasing at a rapid pace. India has emerged as one of the fastest-growing ecosystems for fintech innovation and the government and the central bank have been instrumental in driving the globalisation of India’s digital payment infrastructure.