Unified Payments Interface (UPI) based transaction is expected to reach one billion per day in the next five years, says the union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Addressing an event organised by the industry body FICCI on September 21 2022, Sitharaman said, data released by NPCI shows that UPI reported 6.28 billion transactions worth Rs 10.62 trillion in July 2022.

“Substantial growth is being seen in transactions on a monthly basis.UPI aims to process one billion transactions a day in the next five years,” she said. FM affirmed that technology adoption in India is very high not only in major cities but also in tier-2 and 3 cities and rural areas. “Digital adoption by Indian citizens is amazing,” she added. 

Addressing the session ‘Future of Financing’ at FICCI LEADS 2022, Sitharaman said that the future of finance is going to be Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) and “there is a sense of urgency with which we need to plan”.

She also stated that the role of artificial intelligence is going to be critical in the fintech sector. “I see a big role for AI in the fintech sector in the detection of fraud, crime and accessing the risks. We will have to ensure personal data security, national and cyber security in our planning,” she added. The FM informed that India is working on a system where only a single KYC is needed which can be used across different spheres. 

According to the FM, the future of finance will be driven more and more through banking and related services and account aggregators will play a crucial role in it. “Account aggregator system has been adopted by 21 banks including public sector banks,” she added. 

Also Read: Credit cards linked to UPI: All you need to know about RBI’s move

Sitharaman emphasised that the link between start-ups, fintech and private equity is visible. There are 6,636 start-ups and 21 unicorns in the fintech sector and private equity have helped them to become start-up. “Private equity is pushing them quickly in the path of progress,” she concluded.