The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) stepped up to help when the government’s Digital India programme was faced with a key challenge: How to move consumers from cash to digital modes of payment? Until then, the not-for-profit organisation owned by banks was known only for the RuPay cards it issued to Jan Dhan account holders. The distant competitor to Visa and Mastercard has since emerged the driving force of the country’s digital payments agenda.
From Bharat Interface for Money or BHIM to Aadhaar Enabled Payments, Aadhaar Pay and FASTags, NPCI developed instruments that allowed the government to push digital transaction. Today, it is the umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India.
NPCI was the unanimous choice of the jury for the Policy Change Agent award, for the way it revolutionised the payments landscape of the country during challenging times.
While NPCI grabbed headlines in 2017, the work for all this had started in 2010, when the Reserve Bank of India formed a body exclusively to look at driving retail digital payments. AP Hota, then a senior executive at the Payment and Settlement Department at the RBI, became its chief executive.
Starting with creating the National Financial Switch for all ATM transactions and a centralised cheque clearance mechanism to the IMPS instant bank-to-bank fund transfer and smartphone-based Unified Payments Interface (UPI), NPCI has created products to cater to the varied payment needs of the Indian public.
The UPI is now getting replicated in several countries. It has also opened the gates for innovation with tech giants like Google and WhatsApp developing payment offerings for Indians.
“Contribution of the board, employees, banks, ecosystem efforts and guidance of the RBI have helped us get to this stage,” Dilip Asbe, NPCI’s current CEO, said, reacting to the news of it getting the award.
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