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Showing posts with the label digital payments

UPI’s Free Ride: A Masterstroke - But Can It Last?

  Already 2 years ago, I explored in my blog " The UPI Phenomenon: From Zero to 10 Billion " ( https://bankloch.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-upi-phenomenon-from-zero-to-10.html ) how India’s   Unified Payments Interface (UPI)   reshaped the digital payments landscape. UPI has grown into one of the world’s largest digital payment systems, processing over 18 billion transactions monthly and accounting for more than 83% of India’s digital transaction volume. Its success is unprecedented, driven largely by a unique feature:   zero cost . Merchants don’t pay to accept payments, and users don’t pay to send or receive money. This absence of fees has removed all barriers for users and merchants for joining the system. But this model requires also heavy subsidizing by the Indian government and as UPI further grows and expands internationally (UPI is already live in countries like the UAE, Singapore, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, France and Mauritius), cracks are beginning to show. It...