The Digital Lifelines

Context: COVID-19 has underscored the importance of technology tools that serve as critical lifelines MSMEs and individuals.

Digital India and Digital Platform: Unified Payments Interface (UPI) System/Technology

• Enables digital payments to one another and to millions of small businesses that serve local communities and the world.
• National open standard approach: UPI means that no one company, foreign or domestic, can write the rules for the other. 

• Everyone has to meet the same standards set in India.

• Indigenous platform built on Indian technology and governed by Indian rules: holds great potential for further innovation and commerce. 

• Payment transaction information remains with the banks and within the country. 

• UPI is the need of the hour: people can send money to their aged parents, isolated during this time of physical distancing like migrant workers.

• Farmers can sell their products outside the market.

• Enables the company’s partnership with local technology leaders: and financial institutions, to serve the unique needs of a diverse user base.   

• NPCI has set a goal to increase UPI’s user base to 500 million by 2022.

• COVID-19 has only underscored the importance of technology tools that will serve as critical lifelines for small and micro-enterprises and individuals as they look to recover from the pandemic.

Way Forward

• Fintech innovation and financial inclusion: by launching payments on WhatsApp across India.

• More tech companies need to leverage the power of UPI to expand the digital ecosystem.
• It can solve large social, business and financial problems and then become templates for other countries to deploy.

• UPI can also anchor a broader suite of fintech applications: like micro-pensions, digital insurance products, and flexible loans which WhatsApp can facilitate. 

Conclusion: Doubling the size of digital India requires bridging the digital divide and expanding access to tools and platforms that power India’s democratic digital economy.