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.
She has been booked under the relevant sections of the Official Secrets Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, said the police.
With digital adoption fast gaining currency, India is likely to see retail digital payments double to $7 trillion by 2030 from current levels, a study by Kearney and Amazon Pay said. In the report 'How Urban India Pays', Kearney-Amazon Pay said strong adoption of digital payments in online purchases has potentially led to a permanent shift in consumer behaviours, fuelling offline adoption as well.
'Illegal gambling operators are systematically exploiting India's advertising and payment infrastructure, siphoning off crores of rupees from outside the country.'
Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has been granted permission to double its user base for the payments service to 40 million by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). WhatsApp has a total user base of 400 million and the development will help the platform compete better with entrenched rivals like Google Pay and Phone Pe. The US-based company had been eyeing the payments opportunity for long, but data localisation requirements had initially led to a delay.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said Parliament's Monsoon session is like a 'Vijay Utsav' as the Indian armed forces achieved their objectives under Operation Sindoor 100 per cent, and expressed confidence that the MPs will articulate this sentiment in one voice.
Digipin promises to revolutionise location-based services in India with safeguards.
In 2024, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) approved 20 third-party Unified Payments Interface (UPI) applications, a record since UPI's launch in 2016. This surge reflects growing interest from financial technology (fintech) companies, driven by the integration of credit products like UPI-linked credit cards and pre-approved credit lines.
UPI has catapulted India into the forefront on the global digital payments landscape. Working hand in hand, the AePS payments system is making life easy for rural folks, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
One97 Communications Ltd (OCL), the company that operates the Paytm brand, posted a consolidated loss of Rs 539.8 crore in the fourth quarter of 2024-25 (Q4FY25), slightly lower from the Rs 549.6 crore it reported in Q4FY24. Sequentially, the fintech company's loss widened from Rs 208.3 crore in Q3FY25 on account of a one-time exceptional expense amounting to Rs 522 crore during the quarter ended March 2025.
PhonePe said on Tuesday it has launched a service that will allow the fintech firm's Indian users traveling abroad to pay foreign merchants using Unified Payments Interface (UPI). 'UPI international' supports merchant outlets in UAE, Singapore, Mauritius, Nepal and Bhutan that have a local QR (quick response) code. Users will be able to make direct payments in a foreign currency from their Indian bank, like they do with international debit cards.
About 99,165 electric cars were sold in India in 2024, but electric car penetration -- share of electric car sales in total sales -- was just about 2.5 per cent.
'The only solution is for the government to allow us to charge a low controlled MDR of 25 bps on UPI P2M transactions only for merchants with more than a Rs 40 lakh turnover.'
An hour-long disruption could affect around 40 million UPI transactions.
Non-banking entities such as fintech firms will have to tap into use cases beyond peer-to-peer (P2P) and peer-to-merchant (P2M) transactions to scale up the presence of the retail version of the central bank digital currency (CBDC), which is also known as the e, said industry players. These use cases will enable programmable transactions across domains, including the government's direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes, with subsidies restricted to specific purposes such as food coupons, hospital bills, fertilisers, pesticides, and cross-border remittances.
UPI-related frauds have accounted for a cumulative loss of Rs 2,145 crore across 2.7 million reported incidents.
Consumers can effectively make payments using UPI and other debit cards, credit cards and internet banking across 120 banks and over 120 billers, Xiaomi said.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions saw an 8 per cent month-on-month increase in volume to 16.73 billion in December, the highest volume for the digital system since it became operational in April 2016. The value also increased by 8 per cent to Rs 23.25 trillion, up from Rs 21.55 trillion in November.
Fintech firm BharatPe is targeting an initial public offering (IPO) in the next 18-24 months with the company expecting profitability at an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and ammotisation (Ebitda) level for FY25, chief executive officer (CEO) Nalin Negi said.
The Indian financial and payments systems remained largely unaffected by the Microsoft services outage, though about 10 banks and NBFCs faced minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being fixed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said India will become the growth engine for the world in the coming years, and the ease of doing business has improved with "mission-mode" reforms being undertaken by his government. Speaking at the BRICS Business Forum Leaders' Dialogue in Johannesburg, Modi also said India soon will become a $5 trillion economy.
'The next decade will be even more transformative,' says Prime Minister Modi. 'We are moving from digital governance to global digital leadership.'
The CII Business Summit 2025's inaugural session witnessed a rousing standing ovation and a felicitation ceremony for the defence top brass sending a strong message about India's rising military industrial complex and hghlghting that security is a top-of-the-mind issue for India Inc.
An extensive drug trafficking network operating throughout north India, with a particular focus on Shimla, has been busted following the arrest of two individuals - one from Kolkata and one from Delhi. The syndicate used online platforms for booking drugs, misusing innocent people's accounts and delivering drugs through couriers. Police have frozen 21 accounts associated with the network and arrested 16 individuals, including the kingpin, Sandeep Shah.
One97 Communications (OCL), the company that operates brand Paytm, received a nod from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to onboard new Unified Payments Interface (UPI) users. This comes nearly nine months after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) placed an embargo on OCL to add new customers.
Isn't there something significant in the UPI example for all of us to learn from and execute to enable world-scale success for our startups?, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
Flipkart-backed fintech firm super.money is aiming to be among the top five players on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) leaderboard by the end of this year, a senior company executive has said. The company, which rolled out its beta version in June this year, has processed about 10 million transactions till date. "We have a target of 100 million transactions for the end of the year.
'If you are not prudent, you may exceed your budget, and if it happens too often, you may end up in debt.'
The Reserve Bank on Wednesday allowed credit cards to be linked with the unified payments interface (UPI), which will enable more people to make payments using the popular platform. At present, UPI facilitates transactions by linking savings or current accounts through users' debit cards. "...it is proposed to allow linking of credit cards to UPI," RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said while announcing the regulatory moves, along with the bi-monthly policy review.
In today's rapidly evolving digital payment landscape, security concerns remain a top priority for stakeholders across sectors.
With the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) extended deadline coming to an end, there will be no automatic recurring payment for various services including recharge and utility bill as the additional factor of authentication (AFA) will become mandatory from Friday. On December 4, RBI had directed all banks including RRBs, NBFCs, and payment gateways that the processing of recurring transactions (domestic or cross-border) using cards or Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) or Unified Payments Interface (UPI) under arrangements/practices not compliant with AFA would not be continued beyond March 31, 2021. As part of risk mitigation measures, RBI announced this step to bolster safety and security of card transactions.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the flagship payments platform of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), touched a record high both in terms of volume and value of transactions in June after a slump in April and May. The platform recorded 2.8 billion transactions worth Rs 5.47 trillion in June, up 10.6 per cent in volume terms and 11.56 per cent in value terms over May. This is in sync with the opening up of the economy as Covid cases gradually came down from its peak in mid-May and lockdowns were eased in various places.
The government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is likely to start levying user charges in the current financial year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday expressed hope that digital transactions will soon surpass cash as Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is increasingly becoming the most preferred payment mechanism in the country. Modi after the launch of the cross-border connectivity between the UPI and PayNow of Singapore said about 74 billion transactions amounting to more than Rs 126 trillion, which is approximately 2 trillion Singapore dolla, was done through UPI in 2022. "Many experts are estimating that very soon India's digital wallet transactions are going to overtake cash transactions," he said.
Technology is rapidly reshaping industries that have long been rooted in tradition, driving a wave of innovation that is transforming everything from finance, banking, steel to manufacturing.
'My job is to provide people with a bouquet of options they can choose from.'
In a major decision, the RBI on Friday announced that UPI payment limit to hospitals and educational institutions will be raised to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 1 lakh at present and hiked the cap for e-mandates for recurring payments to Rs 1 lakh. Unveiling the December bi-monthly monetary policy, Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das said the limit for various categories of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions has been reviewed from time to time. "It is now proposed to enhance the UPI transaction limit for payment to hospitals and educational institutions from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh per transaction," he said.
Walmart-owned fintech firm PhonePe said it has crossed 500 million lifetime registered users on its platform. With this milestone, 1 in 3 Indians are now on PhonePe. The company said it is the first Indian internet company to have reached this scale globally. This milestone has been achieved in just over 7 years since the PhonePe UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payments launched in August 2016.
Capital markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday streamlined the payment of processing fee through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system for shares applied for and allotted during an initial public offering (IPO). In addition, the regulator has devised a new reporting format for capturing the data of all ASBA (Application Supported by Block Amount) applications unblocked by Self Certified Syndicate Banks (SCSBs) and their corresponding date of actual unblock. The new format has been put in place after reviewing the performance of SCSBs on timely unblocking of application amounts and feedback received from market intermediaries, Sebi said in a circular.
Nandan Nilekani talks about moving towards a cashless economy and freedom of Internet, among others