The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is developing digital public infrastructure and payments intelligence platforms using artificial intelligence and application programming interfaces to improve customer experience and strengthen the payments ecosystem.
It will enable real-time intel sharing among banks and other financial sector participants to strengthen customer protection against digital fraud.
About 85 per cent of the digital payment transactions take place through UPI in India, and the country can be a case study in inclusive, secure, and scalable Digital Public Platforms (DPPs), Reserve Bank Governor Sanjay Malhotra has said. He was speaking at a "High-Level Dialogue on Forging Economic Resilience through Digital Public Platforms" organised by RBI on the sidelines of the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC on Tuesday.
IRCTC is expanding its payments arm, IRCTC Payments, to handle transactions across its ticketing platform and tap government clients, aiming to scale its annual payment processing to approximately 1 trillion.
From April 1, 2026, the Reserve Bank of India's new authentication directions modernise how every digital payment you make must be verified -- and place the burden of security squarely on your bank, not on you.
'The focus needs to shift towards the ability to collect payments, particularly in tier-3 to tier-4 areas where acceptance is still lacking.'
PhonePe has announced it has surpassed 700 million registered users on its platform. This milestone underscores PhonePe's extensive reach in India and its diverse digital offerings in payments and financial services. The company's growth is attributed to increasing consumer trust, a strong distribution network, and a focus on user-friendly digital payment experiences.
Gautam Adani emphasised the importance of energy security and digital infrastructure in shaping geopolitical power, urging India to develop sovereign capabilities across the AI value chain.
E-commerce companies have understood the importance of having their own in-house wallet, explaining their acquisition spree, says Manoranjan Mohapatra.
Delhi LG Taranjit Singh Sandhu addressed the Global Confluence 2026, emphasising the importance of maintaining a human element at the heart of digital nation-building. He highlighted India's digital transformation and the role of technology in improving lives, while urging a focus on inclusive development and national security.
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has enabled UPI, debit, and credit card payments for Customs duty on the ICEGATE portal, enhancing ease of doing business for importers and exporters.
'It is a tradeoff between convenience and fraud prevention.'
Rediff.com India Ltd, a subsidiary of AvenuesAI Ltd, has filed draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI through the confidential pre-filing route, marking an important step towards a potential public listing after its acquisition and strategic shift to an AI-led digital platform.
The amount involved in banking system frauds surged to Rs 21,515 crore in the first half of FY26, up 30 per cent from the same period last year, even as the number of frauds fell 2.8 times to 5,092.
Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has launched two new mobile applications, MyLIC for policyholders and Super Sales Saathi for its sales intermediaries, aiming to enhance digital agility and cater to the younger generation's needs. The apps, part of LIC's DIVE digital transformation platform, offer features like policy management, premium payments, and personalised recommendations.
A platform that helps retailers reduce failed transactions while keeping the cost down, Innoviti is all set for India's digital payments revolution.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is promoting India as a global hub for digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence, highlighting the government's incentives for data center investments and inviting the world's data to reside in India.
N Sundaresha Subramanian digs deeper into what Catalyst, an Indo-US project, brings to the payments ecosystem.
A cybersecurity expert warns that cyberattacks are increasingly targeting critical infrastructure, posing direct risks to human lives beyond mere data theft. The convergence of IT and OT expands the attack surface, making sectors like aviation, transport, and public utilities highly vulnerable.
'First-time applicants may witness longer approval times or higher rejection rates and requests for more documentation.'
Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini released over 2,115 crore directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries under various welfare schemes, benefiting over 58 lakh eligible individuals.
Gautam Adani, chairman of Adani group, emphasised that energy and intelligence are inseparable national priorities, asserting that India must build its own capabilities in these sectors rather than relying on external sources, especially in the context of global conflicts and shifting supply chains.
India should resist knee-jerk responses to tariff volatility in the US and instead use the current geopolitical churn to build manufacturing scale at home, former G20 Sherpa and former chief executive officer of NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant said on Wednesday.
'More than becoming a unicorn, what truly satisfies us is seeing small businesses grow from Rs 10,000 a month to Rs 20 lakh after joining our platform.'
rediffGURU Jinal Mehta answers readers' financial planning and health insurance queries
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra stated that preventing second-round effects of supply shocks, where inflation expectations rise due to prolonged disruptions, is the primary role of monetary policy. He also defended the RBI's foreign exchange market interventions, asserting it did not commit to an 'indefensible peg'.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced that India and France will collaborate to develop an artificial intelligence framework that combines innovation with responsibility and technology with humanity, addressing the need for inclusive digital tools amid rising geopolitical tensions.
The Union Budget on Sunday proposed a tax holiday till 2047 for foreign companies that provide cloud services to customers globally using data centres located in India, signalling the government's push to make the country a major hub for AI and digital infrastructure.
The Union Budget on Sunday proposed a tax holiday till 2047 for foreign companies that provide cloud services to customers globally using data centres located in India, signalling the government's push to make the country a major hub for AI and digital infrastructure.
We propose an expert group be set up to form a national strategy on digital fraud. This group would bring together skills in financial regulation, security economics, cyber defence, and public communications, and an understanding of the Indian financial and security systems. It should lay the foundations of a coordinated approach by the Indian State in fighting digital fraud, suggest Ajay Shah and Nandkumar Saravade.
E-commerce giant Amazon plans to make a mega-investment of $35 billion, over Rs 3.14 lakh crore, in India by 2030 across its businesses with a focus on AI-driven digitization, export growth and job creation, a senior company official said on Wednesday.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested Ayush Varshney, co-founder of Darwin Labs, in connection with the 200 million Gain Bitcoin cryptocurrency scam. Varshney was apprehended while attempting to flee the country.
In August, the Fed announced that it would develop a "new interbank 24x7x365 RTGS with integrated clearing functionality to support faster payments in the United States". The Fed Board asked for comments on FedNow by November. In reply to this, Google mentioned its experience of launching Google Pay -- Google's payments app which uses the UPI -- in India.
By enabling real-time data sharing, the platform will help prevent scams and ensure secure transactions.
In modern investing, transparency is more valuable than zero fees and not all investing app score big on this front, says Ramalingam Kalirajan.
Indian car buyers care more about affordability than technology, keeping ICE vehicles dominant while hybrids emerge as the preferred transition option and EVs struggle in the mass market.
"We currently manage collections for over 98 million retail and small-business loan accounts, covering a loan book of about $250 billion," says Rishabh Goel, cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Credgenics, a software-as-a-service platform for debt collection. With more than 700 million smartphone users and over 450 million UPI users, digital access is everywhere.
'We have seen that stablecoins lack the basic attributes of money, their advantages are neither unique nor unambiguous and their risks are all too real.'
Overall economic activity continued to hold up in November with demand conditions remaining robust, thanks to strengthening urban demand, but manufacturing and rural demand showed some signs of deceleration even as services remained strong, according to an article on the State of the Economy written by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials in the central bank's December bulletin.
Several executives argue that UPI has the potential to grow tenfold, but warn that the absence of a monetisation model risks stagnating the real-time payments system, which has been recording all-time-high transaction volumes every year.
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