A vendor at Jabalpur railway station was detained after a video surfaced showing him allegedly taking a passenger's wristwatch as payment for samosas due to an online transaction failure.
Reserve Bank Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Wednesday exhorted the fledgling fintech ecosystem to focus on the underserved sections of the society to deepen financial inclusion. Speaking at the annual Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai, Malhotra accepted that serving the "privileged" will be a lucrative business, but urged the smaller companies to focus on the underserved.
'The Indian consumer is moving so quickly and they have so many options.'
Mobile wallet adoption is surging in India and swiftly becoming a primary payment option, surpassing traditional methods like cash and cards. Over the next few years, payments via mobile wallets in India are likely to surpass the Rs 531.8 trillion mark in 2028, witnessing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.3 per cent between 2024 and 2028, according to GlobalData - a London-based leading data and analytics company. The value of mobile wallet payments in India, as per a GlobalData report, grew at a CAGR of 72.1 per cent between 2019 and 2023 to reach Rs 202.8 trillion ($2.5 trillion) in 2023.
The Supreme Court has sought responses from the Centre and others on a plea challenging the validity of a provision of the Income Tax Act that allows political parties to receive "anonymous" cash donations below Rs 2,000.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) plans to mandate the UPI block mechanism, also known as the ASBA-like facility, in the secondary market for Qualified Stock Brokers (QSBs). QSBs are brokers with larger client sizes and thus more significance in the market ecosystem.
These top two apps account for more than 78 per cent of the UPI market in terms of volume of transaction, and 86 per cent of the market by value of transactions in December.
India has nearly 490 million online gamers, and an estimated Rs 10,000 crore is spent every month on online gaming transactions.
Reserve Bank of India on Friday said NPCI has been asked to examine the possibility of it becoming a third party application provider for continued UPI operations of the Paytm app. The central bank has barred Paytm Payments Bank from accepting further credits into its customer accounts and wallets after March 15, 2024.
Investors will be able to authenticate if the entity receiving the payment is a valid entity under the ambit of Sebi.
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) recent decision to allow credit cards for payments through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is likely to attract a merchant discount rate (MDR), said a top payment industry source. For smaller merchants, a subsidy for MDR could be provided. "With credit card-UPI linkage, UPI will not only be a payment instrument but also a lending platform. "How can banks lend without a commercial model? Also, the government has said MDR will be zero for payment products but not for lending products," the source said, indicating the MDR regime for credit card-linked UPI payments.
Recent RBI data indicates net addition of credit cards is running strong at 18 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), but growth in credit card limits is ahead of loans outstanding. Growth in lower limit cards is decelerating fastest. The West and South have more usage and online transactions are more popular than offline, with metros leading growth.
For financial institutions, it will be an opportunity to provide better lending options. For instance, customers who pay their overdrafts on time will get access to more credit and probably at a cheaper rate.
Paytm app users will continue to use all services like mobile and DTH recharges except for Paytm Payments Bank's offerings including wallet funds, Fastag and bank accounts, according to the company hit by RBI restrictions. Paytm Payments Bank users will not be able to add any funds to their wallet and bank accounts but will be able to use the balance until it is exhausted, according to the RBI order. "The RBI has issued a directive restricting Paytm Payments Bank account/wallet from accepting new deposits or allowing credit transactions after March 15, 2024.
The transition to UPI-based ATMs will be gradual, and consumers will not immediately switch to using standalone UPI ATMs overnight.
Festive sales are expected to surge 27 per cent to cross Rs 120,000 crore in 2025, driving Amazon and Flipkart to expand warehousing capacity by millions of cubic feet and extend delivery networks to thousands of new pin codes -- an infrastructure buildout that could reshape India's retail landscape for years.
UPI transactions are growing faster, but wallets remain relevant for those without a bank account and seeking cashbacks.
Flipkart-backed super.money is on an expansion spree and plans to expand its range of offerings in credit and wealth management after launching its operations in July this year. The Bengaluru-based fintech company is on track to roll out credit products such as credit on Unified Payments Interface (UPI), unsecured credit cards, and personal loans within the first half of the next calendar year (2025).
From Rs 73k to over Rs 1.2L between January-December 2025 -- is buying gold in 2026 still sensible?
The government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is likely to start levying user charges in the current financial year.
'This marks a turning point for Paytm, with the regulatory environment looking much clearer than it has been in the last two years.'
'The larger and more opaque this shadow economy becomes, especially online, the greater the risk to India's national security.'
High frequency indicators, like vehicles sales, air traffic, steel consumption and GST E-way bills, point towards a sequential pickup in momentum of economic activity during the second half of the fiscal 2024-25 and sustain moving forward, RBI Bulletin said on Wednesday. However, a strong dollar, driven by US economic resilience and trade policy pivots, could exacerbate capital outflows from emerging economies, push risk premiums higher, and intensify external vulnerabilities, said an article on 'State of the Economy' published in RBI's February bulletin.
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.
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.
Let's work flat out and create a policy framework that fosters the growth of Indian non-family business VC and private equity firms. This will allow our Indian startups' dreams to flourish, explains Ajit Balakrishnan.
BHIM is a platform designed to make payment through UPI and USSD modes simpler.
Online fraudsters are widely targeting Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions to dupe people and carry out unauthorised transactions, making it the most prevalent form of online financial fraud during 2020-2023, said a whitepaper on cybercrime trends.
Tax evaders, BEWARE! The Income Tax department is using AI data analytics to bust fake deductions, flag HRA fraud, and trace digital footprints.
The interface allows you to add multiple banks and transfer money, even between payment wallets, for a fraction of existing costs
There will be no charge for RuPay credit card use on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for transactions up to Rs 2,000 in line with the RBI direction, a recent NPCI circular said. RuPay credit card has been operational for the last four years, and all major banks are enabled and are issuing incremental cards for both commercial and retail segments. "During credit card on-boarding on the apps, the device binding and UPI PIN setting process shall include and be construed as customer consent for credit card enablement for all types of transactions," the circular dated October 4 said.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday asked fintech startups to come out with solutions to deal with the rising incidence of digital arrests, cheating by fly-by-night operators, and other kinds of cyber frauds. Speaking at the Digital Payments Awards 2025 ceremony here, the minister credited fintechs with helping speed up financial inclusion and taking the payment system to even the far-flung areas of the country.
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.
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.
Shariful Islam Shehzad Mohammad Rohilla Amin Fakir, the man arrested for stabbing actor Saif Ali Khan, slept soundly after the attack and changed his clothes before heading to Worli, a police official said. The accused, a Bangladeshi national, had entered Khan's home in Bandra with the intention of theft. The police have remanded the accused in five-day police custody.
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.
The NPCI has permitted non-residents from 10 countries, including the US, Canada and UAE, to digitally transfer funds using the UPI platform from NRE/NRO accounts. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in a circular said it has been receiving requests for allowing non-residents to use international mobile numbers for transacting in Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Accordingly, the NPCI in a circular dated January 10 has asked the UPI participants to put in place a mechanism by April 30 under which non-residents having NRE/NRO accounts will be allowed to transfer funds using their international mobile numbers.
In today's rapidly evolving digital payment landscape, security concerns remain a top priority for stakeholders across sectors.
Out of all the reported digital payment frauds in India, over half (55 per cent) were United Payments Interface (UPI)-related, a new report released on Tuesday revealed. Another 18 per cent are card related, 12 per cent are related to internet banking and nine per cent are from phishing calls. Most of the UPI-related frauds, however, have a low ticket size.
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