NPCI: Making India a Cashless Economy

The digital economy, as regarded by experts is the third industrial revolution, a new productivity platform that is changing the way payments are made. Due to Indian Government’s flagship programme ‘The Digital India’, we are transcending towards a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy that can be described as “Faceless, Paperless, Cashless”.

According to Goldman Sachs  – India could be the second largest economy by 2030, comprising 15% of the world population, with a growth rate of 7 to 8%. And this new leadership new leadership considers the digital economy as a major growth enabler, as India continues to make steady progress toward becoming a “Cashless Economy.” and it is being enabled by various modes of digital payments.

Have you ever wondered who is the truly responsible for enabling the Digital infrastructure for all the banks and payment bodies to interact with each other? Let’s take an example, If I want to access any other bank’s ATM via my Bank’s ATM Card, there has to be a connectivity among the bank servers. This connectivity is made possible through ATM Switch, by NPCI which is changing the landscape of Payments in the country.

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is the umbrella organisation for all retail payments system in India, a not-for-profit organization promoted by RBI and has presently ten core promoter banks (State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citibank and HSBC).

They have some amazing products under its wing. It’s driven by the vision being able to provide citizens of India with easy to use, secure, super-fast and cost-effective payment services that can be used anytime, anywhere. Let’s see few of them.

Unified Payments Interface (UPI):

“One platform that takes care of all your transactions!” Yes, it’s as simple as that. It’s safe, it’s reliable, you don’t have to pull money into it from your bank account to it because it’s not a wallet. It’s an interface between your banks, or bank and merchant. It powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application. You can even pay your UBER ride with UPI, no need of any other e-wallet! How cool is that! I have been using UPI for a while now and I don’t need another payment app.

UPI is a standardized, innovative, adaptable, secure and cost-effective interface with single click 2 Factor Authentication. Some of its benefits are mentioned in the image.

BHIM (Bharat Interface of Money):

It is another ingenious product! It is an app that lets you make easy and super quick payment transactions using Unified Payments Interface (UPI). One can easily make instant bank to bank payments and collect money using just a Mobile number or Payment address. One can also Request money, Scan & Pay by QR Coe. It’s your 24×7 payment solution in your preferred language!

RuPay

RuPay is an Indian domestic card scheme, “RuPay”, the word itself has a sense of nationality in it. “RuPay” is the coinage of two terms Rupee and Payment. It has the benefits of low cost and affordability, customized product offering, inter-operability between payment channels and products & protection of information related to Indian Consumers. It has the Customized product offering, Protection of information related to Indian consumers, and has multiple offers and benefits for it’s of it’s customers.

Other products by NPCI are National Financial Switch, Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), Bharat Bill Payment System, BharatQR, Aadhaar Payments Bridge System (APBS) and more.

When I came to know about NPCI, I was surprised myself that how it has been touching the lives of each India every day. And how amazingly they are dedicated to what they do. They crossed the milestone of 1 billion seamless transactions in one month, they are indeed one of the best payments Networks Globally.