Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday urged the banks to explore creating deeper digital opportunities and make use of UPI as a transformative innovation to empower millions as the unified payments interface (UPI) went global. FM Sitharaman further added that at present, the UPI in the country accounts for 45% of the global digital payments.
Speaking at an event in Pune, the Finance Minister said that a robust banking system can help achieve economic growth, social progress, and environmental sustainability, and as UPI spreads its wings, the banks can thrive along with it too. Based on the encouraging response received from several countries, the RBI is now focusing on making "UPI and RuPay truly global.".
UPI saw 41 pc growth (year-on year) at a record 14.96 billion transactions in the month of August, as the total transaction amount touched Rs 20.61 lakh crore — a 31 pc YoY growth. The average daily transaction amount stood at 483 million last month, as the average daily transaction amount reached Rs 66,475 crore.
The value of UPI transactions processed has remained above Rs 20 lakh crore for four months running. That is not all; UPI is also now adding up to 60 lakh new users every month, thanks to the RuPay credit card on UPI and its rollout in foreign countries. To its credit, the NPCI has also set an ambitious target of reaching 1 billion UPI transactions a day in coming years. On the growth of credits, digital payments technology will hit 100 billion transactions in the next 10-15 years.
Credit has already gone live on the UPI system. While emphasizing that technology was revolutionizing the digital payments scenario, FM Sitharaman said banks had to focus on being strong in their digital systems and strong firewalls to protect the trust of the customer. As banks benefit from technology, banks need to learn periodically how they might mitigate risks and improve customer service, credit assessments, and fraud detection with the use of technology, Finance Minister noted.
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