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.
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.
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.
'The larger and more opaque this shadow economy becomes, especially online, the greater the risk to India's national security.'
For those who are sceptical about using debit or credit cards, even when faced with cash crunch, Adhil Shetty, CEO of BankBazaar.com, lists out a few safe cashless options that can be exercised through mobile phones.
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.
Tax evaders, BEWARE! The Income Tax department is using AI data analytics to bust fake deductions, flag HRA fraud, and trace digital footprints.
The NITI Aayog may want us to believe this is one of the easiest payment systems in the world, but Tinesh Bhasin decodes the many unanswered queries and concerns involving the United Payments Interface.
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.
'This marks a turning point for Paytm, with the regulatory environment looking much clearer than it has been in the last two years.'
In today's rapidly evolving digital payment landscape, security concerns remain a top priority for stakeholders across sectors.
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.
From Rs 73k to over Rs 1.2L between January-December 2025 -- is buying gold in 2026 still sensible?
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.
Despite the demonetisation of 2016 and the rise in digital transactions that followed, the economy's dependence on cash has remained as high as ever. So when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced a pilot project of its version of digital cash - called the central bank digital currency (CBDC) - on December 1, many questions were asked. Can the CBDC replace physical cash, even partially? Can it match cash in terms of convenience? Are CBDC transactions truly anonymous?
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.
The Reserve Bank on Wednesday allowed inbound travellers from G20 nations arriving at select airports to use the popular UPI for making payments in the country. Later, the RBI also proposes to extend the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) facility to travellers from all countries. UPI is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application, merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood.
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.
In a significant breakthrough, the Malerkotla Police apprehended two individuals for alleged involvement in espionage activities linked to a Pakistani official posted at the High Commission in New Delhi, said Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) on Sunday.
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.
Digipin promises to revolutionise location-based services in India with safeguards.
'The next decade will be even more transformative,' says Prime Minister Modi. 'We are moving from digital governance to global digital leadership.'
While it took UPI three years to reach a billion transactions in a month, the next billion came in just a year. Digital payments, especially UPI, saw increased adoption in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Tuesday launched a new service, which will enable over 40 crore feature phone users to undertake digital payments in a secure way. The service christened UPI (unified payments interface) '123PAY' is a three-step method to initiate and execute services for users which will work on simple phones which do not have an internet connection. Das said, as of now, the multifaceted features of UPI are mostly available only on smartphones, which excludes people from the lower rung of the society from an economic perspective, especially in the rural areas, from accessing the popular service, even though the smartphone prices are going down.
The era where nations thrived through rigid alignments is giving way to an age where the connective State defines power. For India, that era has arrived, points out Dr Nishakant Ojha.
Apart from SBI, UPI 2.0 partner banks are HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, RBL Bank, YES Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, Federal Bank and HSBC.
She has been booked under the relevant sections of the Official Secrets Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, said the police.
New-age stocks to buy: Most new-age stocks have turned out to be wealth destroyers in stock markets, so far, in calendar year 2025. Shares of Ola Electric Mobility, for instance, have plunged nearly 50 per cent in the first half of CY 2025, while those of Swiggy, PB Fintech, Paytm, and Eternal (Zomato) have crashed between 6 per cent and 25 per cent, ACE Equity data shows.
While Paytm (One97 Communications) is not completely past regulatory hurdles, its share price has gained in the last month or two. The Paytm handle migration is complete along with FDI clearance necessary for the Payment Aggregator (PA) license. UPI consumer data indicates stable market share, and expansion in partner networks in financial distribution. All this implies Paytm could be set to meet guidance of turning Adjusted Ebitda breakeven by Q4FY25 (ex of UPI-incentives).
ICICI Bank says it blocked all UPI transactions made through PhonePe due to security concerns.
The start of BHIM's declining share coincided with the launch of Google Tez in mid-Septem
'United Health Interface is in line with UPI. UPI is a language of money transfer, similarly, UHI is a set of protocols, which is going to create a language of health service delivery'
'The focus needs to shift towards the ability to collect payments, particularly in tier-3 to tier-4 areas where acceptance is still lacking.'
Adhiraj Parthasarathy, a professional from Telangana, tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what he would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches at seven locations across India in connection with a Rs 350 crore crypto ponzi scam. The accused, operating seven modules in different cities, allegedly lured investors with promises of high returns on cryptocurrency investments. The CBI seized digital virtual assets totaling USD 38,414 in cryptocurrency wallets, cash amounting to Rs 34.2 lakh, and digital evidence, including mobile phones, laptops, tablets, hard disks, and memory cards. The agency registered the case under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.
Earlier this month, RBI told the Delhi high court that Google Pay is a third party app provider and does not operate any payment systems. Therefore, its operations are not in violation of the Payment and Settlement System Act of 2007.
Fraudsters lure individuals with false promises of recovering bonuses or maturity proceeds from lapsed policies.
India saw growth of around 213 per cent in the number of real-time payments processed over the past year.
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.
While six of them have been held from Punjab, five were nabbed from neighbouring Haryana, and one from Uttar Pradesh.
