About Rs 10,000 crore of credit being disbursed through UPI a month

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is witnessing a surge in the UPI platform's credit feature, with about Rs 10,000 crore of transactions happening a month, a top official said on Tuesday.

A bulk of the transactions is from credit cards feature, the body's chief executive and managing director Dilip Asbe told reporters here, adding the pre-sanctioned credit lines on UPI are also gaining traction with up to Rs 200 crore being disbursed through it every month.

The NPCI launched the credit card feature in November 2022, under which a user can link her credit card on the app and all the payments add up to the credit card bill for the month. A slew of lenders are offering credit card facilities now.

Asbe said ICICI Bank is the leader when it comes to pre-sanctioned credit limits facility on UPI and about half a dozen banks have started to offer the facility for their customers.

The development comes at a time when concerns are being raised over the high growth in unsecured loans including credit cards and personal loans. Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a widely used platform which witnessed 466 million transactions in July.

Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of a conference to announce this year's edition of the Global Fintech Fest, Asbe said UPI is witnessing immense growth and ready for the next stage of growth.

He also said that the objective of the central bank digital currency (CBDC) is not to compete with the UPI, and added that there are a lot of features on the CBDC like programmability which will be of a lot of use for India.

Speaking at the same event, former RBI executive director G Padmanabhan said there is a "trust deficit" between the fintech industry and the regulators, and added that the former will be keen to discuss ways of embracing the latter's requirements at the three-day event.

Meanwhile, a survey of fintechs done by a consultancy firm ahead of the event revealed that less than a third of the respondents feel they are in sync with the highly regulated entrenched players on the governance aspect, as compared to 27 per cent in last year's survey.

The organisers said that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and a slew of other dignitaries will be speaking at the event to be held in the Bandra Kurla Complex business district.

A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that he aims to make Mumbai the global fintech capital. The Maximum City has been the centre of finance for many decades, while the country's only International Financial Services Centre is in Gujarat.

Padmanabhan said the industry also plans discussion on the digital currencies front with a special focus on the CBDC but added that there will be no calls for a relook into the RBI stance on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

The three-day event will see 350 sessions, 20 reports, 800 speakers including 150 women, and 80,000 footfalls, including representatives from over 25 central banks across the world.

Infosys co-founder Krish Gopalakrishnan, who is also associated with the event, said that networking and investor connect will also be a key focus area at the event and over 300 investors are expected to attend.