“Google and Walmart have a new challenge ahead of them as they race to expand the reach of their payments apps in India: They won’t be permitted to grow beyond a certain limit. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the body that operates the popular UPI payments infrastructure, said Thursday evening that it will enforce a cap to ensure that no single payments app processes more than 30% of UPI transactions in a month.”

“The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched its international subsidiary NPCI International to take its hugely popular instant payment service Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and card network RuPay to international markets. NPCI’s expansion plans have been on the cards since last year. The formation of the new entity is the first definitive step taken by the umbrella entity for retail payments to mark the impending foray. The setup of the new unit also comes at a time when digital payments volume on UPI has been breaking all past records in June and July.”

“Andhra Pradesh government has announced teaming up with the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) and Canara Bank to empower over 15,000 village and ward secretariats with digital payments in the rural areas. The initiative, aimed at providing impetus to digital payments among last mile customers towards financial inclusion was launched by the chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday, introducing UPI QR code in 15,004 village and ward secretariats. “

“Indians averaged about 3.85 digital transactions per person between July 2019 and July this year with Chandigarh leading at 38.4 transactions per person. Delhi averages about 9.3 transactions per person, according to the Digidhan database maintained by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). It tracks digital transactions across National Payments Corporation of India ( NPCI ) operated channels.These include RuPay cards, BHIM — the Unified Payments Interface interface of NPCI–and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)-based mobile transfers over a twelve-month cycle.”

“The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is thinking of ways to limit the Unified Payment Interface’s (UPI) dependence on any single third-party application.It proposes to do this by restricting the share of transactions of any single payment company, people familiar with the matter said.NPCI owns and operates UPI in the capacity of a not-for-profit “umbrella body”.The burgeoning UPI ecosystem is currently dominated by Google Pay, Paytm, Walmart-owned PhonePe and Amazon Pay, who together control over 90% market share.”

“A government audit of India’s flagship payments processor last year found more than 40 security vulnerabilities including several it called “critical” and “high” risk, according to an internal government document seen by Reuters. The audit, which took place over four months to February 2019, highlighted a lack of encryption of personal data at the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which forms the backbone of the country’s digital payments system and operates the RuPay card network championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”