Is Paytm Payments Bank saga casting a shadow on India’s UPI success story? 3 experts weigh in
Notwithstanding the UPI’s success story that has earned commendation in India and overseas with volume of transactions surging at a frantic pace, the unanticipated crackdown on Paytm Payments Bank has caught everyone by surprise.
For the uninitiated, RBI barred Paytm Payments Bank from accepting any customer deposits after Feb 29 citing non-compliance. The deadline was later extended to March 15.
Meanwhile, UPI as a mode of payment is catching up in a big way with customers and merchants alike. The total volume of UPI transactions stood at ₹18.41 lakh crore in January 2024, which was 41 percent higher than the corresponding figure one year ago.
We spoke to a number of fintech industry stakeholders to get a sense of what they perceive would be the outcome of the current set of circumstances revolving around Paytm Payments Bank.
Most of them believe that it is a setback, albeit temporary, and does not encapsulate the goings-on in the fintech sector.
They also argue that the UPI’s success story is still not ripe and it has several more milestones to achieve. One such milestone is the UPI credit line getting activated by banks.
Ashwin Bhambri, Founder, Phone par loan, says“The UPI rails have global scalability and its success in India as an alternative to MasterCard & VISA can be replicated in many other countries."
ALSO READ: RBI allows pre-sanctioned credit lines through UPI
As digital payments continue to evolve, many more financial instruments will be rolled out, thus expanding the UPI’s footprint in size as well as in the volume.
“The recent crisis in a large payments bank is only a temporary setback rather than a reflection of the overall health of fintech companies. Although it may have momentarily hurt
Read more on livemint.com
