Expand UPI, save on remittance cost: PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday exhorted the fintech ecosystem to further expand the global reach of India’s unified payments interface (UPI), connect it with other countries’ local systems and help the diaspora save on remittance costs.
In his address after inaugurating the 7th edition of the Global Fintech Fest, Modi said the Indian economy’s 7.8 per cent real GDP expansion gave confidence to the world at large because the performance came in a challenging quarter when the impact of the West Asia conflict was the highest.
Urging the fintech (financial technology) ecosystem to not rest on the laurels of the past decade that saw real-time payments using UPI rise to 24.51 billion transactions, as of August this year, the PM said the next aim should be to expand UPI’s global reach.
He said the focus should be on countries that are home to a large Indian diaspora, have high trade volumes with India or are willing to partner with New Delhi in connecting their systems.
“This is essential because Indians work in large numbers in foreign countries. They are the largest remitters of money. A part of the remittances goes away as transaction costs; UPI can help in saving on these costs and the money can also reach families faster,” he said.
Modi said the UPI platform is now live in 11 countries and has been connected with the local system in Singapore, which has brought transactions between the two countries on a par with payments done between two local neighbourhoods.
He said global card payments currently run on systems designed in other countries, but underlined that India now has the alternative.
“We can set our own rules and standards and connect them with the world,” he said.
Reiterating French President Emmanuel Macron’s words, Modi said UPI is not only a tech story but also a civilisational one.
Modi said after the high number of successes on the payments front over the past several years, the next chapter for the Indian fintech industry should be non-payment transactions such as enabling access to saving products, pensions, insurance and other financial services.
He said the PM-SVANidhi initiative of supporting street vendors with working capital credit was made possible by UPI, which helped increase the average annual income of the beneficiaries by 20 per cent.
Technology makes it possible to have curated models targeted keeping in mind a particular person’s needs, the PM said, adding that the fintech sector should address the same by making non-payment transactions as easy as undertaking a payment transaction by scanning a QR code.
Modi said upcoming technology sector developments such as agentic artificial intelligence, tokenisation, quantum tech, etc open doors of new possibilities and urged the fintech sector to focus on them by setting specific goals.
“As we go about doing that, the fintech community should ensure that cyber security is top notch in India, the industry has its own ethical data protection standards and also a fintech consumer protection index to rate every company transparently,” Modi said.
India also needs to create a strong fintech-regulator-industry-innovation ecosystem, the PM said.
On the geopolitical front, Modi said the world is going through conflicts and uncertainties, energy and commodities supply chains are under pressure, and there are challenges regarding oil. He underlined that India’s performance on economic growth should be seen in that context.
Japan Credit Rating Agency’s upgrade of India to ‘A-’ from ‘BBB+’ illustrates the confidence the world has in India, Modi said, noting that the upgrade was the first such action in three decades.
“This shows that India’s growth momentum, macroeconomic stability and the structural reforms of the last few years are giving the world comfort,” Modi said.
