Posts

DPI Brief — August 15, 2026 UPI Hits Record 23.66 Billion Monthly Transactions in July India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) processed 23.66 billion transactions worth ₹29.88 lakh crore in July 2026, registering a new all-time high according to NPCI data released this week. Volume grew 4.1% month-on-month from June’s 22.72 billion, while average daily transactions touched approximately 763 million. On a year-on-year basis, volumes grew 22%. The concentration dynamics remain noteworthy: the top three apps — PhonePe (48.38% volume share), Google Pay (~37%), and Paytm — together processed 93% of all UPI transactions in July. NPCI has been actively pushing new product lines — including UPI Tap & Pay, Hello UPI (conversational payments), and UPI Lite X for feature phones — to diversify usage patterns and chase its ambitious 100 billion monthly transaction target. ...

DPI Deep Dive — Friday | August 14, 2026 Layer 5: Sectoral Infrastructure — ABHA, AgriStack, eCourts India’s sectoral Digital Public Infrastructure is having a blockbuster week. Three parallel systems — health IDs, farmer registries, and digital courts — are scaling at a pace that few predicted even 18 months ago. This deep dive examines the most significant developments across ABHA, AgriStack, and eCourts from August 7–14, 2026. 1. ABHA Crosses 96 Crore: India’s Health ID Enters the Real Economy On August 13, the government released fresh data on the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) that puts ABHA — the 14-digit health identity number — at 96.43 crore registrations as of August 12, 2026. That is not the headline number, though. What matters more is the 110 crore health records now linked to ABHA, alongside 5.47 lakh registered health facilities and 10.50 lakh healthcare professionals on the platform. 1 ...

DPI Brief — August 14, 2026 India’s Digital Public Infrastructure ecosystem saw significant developments across payments, governance, health, and trust layers in the past 24 hours. Here are the key updates. UPI Enters “UPI@10” Era as Government Signals MDR Flexibility (L2 — Payments) The Finance Ministry has signalled that subsidies alone cannot sustain UPI’s next growth phase as the system enters its tenth year of operations. According to a detailed analysis in UPSC daily current affairs, UPI ecosystem costs are estimated around ₹20,000 crore annually, while existing government subsidies do not fully cover technology, infrastructure, and compliance expenses. ...

DPI Deep Dive — Wednesday | August 12, 2026 Wednesday marks L3: Documents & Data Exchange in our seven-layer DPI rotation — the layer that powers DigiLocker, API Setu, eSign, and the entire digital document infrastructure that sits between identity (L1) and payments (L2). This week, L3 delivered one of the most significant cross-border DPI expansions in recent memory: DigiLocker going global for international student verification. 1. DigiLocker Goes Global: AAERI Verify Launches for Australian University Admissions The single biggest L3 story this week is the launch of AAERI Verify — a digital platform that integrates DigiLocker to enable instant, source-verified document checks for Indian students applying to Australian universities. Unveiled on August 7 at the AAERI Annual Convention in New Delhi, the platform is a collaboration between the National e-Governance Division (NeGD) under MeitY and the Association of Australian Education Representatives in India (AAERI). ...

DPI Brief — August 12, 2026 UPI Expands to Sri Lankan Ride-Hailing; BRICS Discusses CBDC Interoperability L2 — Payments: India’s payments infrastructure diplomacy continues to accelerate. NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) announced a partnership with Sri Lanka’s ride-hailing platform PickMe, enabling Indian tourists to pay for rides via UPI and receive a flat 20% discount per trip (capped at LKR 750). This is the latest in a series of UPI integrations across Sri Lanka, which has seen international UPI transactions surge from 180 in 2022 to over 7.5 lakh in 2025 — a 20-fold increase. With India remaining Sri Lanka’s largest tourism source market (5.31 lakh Indian visitors in 2025), the integration targets everyday consumer use cases rather than just merchant payments. UPI for Indian Travelers @ Lanka With PickMe Rides — FinTech Biz News ...

DPI Deep Dive — Tuesday | August 11, 2026 L2 — Payments & Financial Rails (NPCI, UPI, RuPay) 1. The Great UPI MDR Debate: Parliament Opens the Door to Merchant Fees The single biggest story in India’s payments ecosystem this week is the Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, which the Lok Sabha passed on August 6. The bill amends Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 — removing the legal provision that prevented banks and payment service providers from charging a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on UPI transactions. ...

DPI Brief — August 11, 2026 Parliament Clears Path for UPI Merchant Fees, Ending Zero-MDR Era The Lok Sabha passed the Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 on August 6, creating the legal groundwork for reintroducing Merchant Discount Rates (MDR) on UPI transactions. The amendment authorises the government to permit banks and service providers to levy charges on electronic payments, a power that had effectively been suspended since the zero-MDR mandate of January 2020. The government has clarified that person-to-person (P2P) payments will remain free for citizens; any MDR would apply only to merchant transactions, with reports suggesting rates of 0.25–0.30% for high-value transactions by large merchants. The actual structure—including thresholds and rate slabs—will be decided by the NPCI-headed UPI and Services Steering Committee once the bill receives Rajya Sabha approval. The move comes as UPI’s growth moderates: transaction volumes grew 23.5% year-on-year between April and July FY27, down from 33.5% in the same period last year, even as value growth held steady at ~20%. ...

DPI Deep Dive — Monday | August 10, 2026 India’s identity infrastructure had a turbulent week. From a multi-district Aadhaar fraud racket busted in Uttar Pradesh to NPCI’s new OTP mandate for high-value AePS withdrawals, and the Lok Sabha opening the door to UPI merchant fees — the L1 Identity & Authentication layer saw developments that cut across security, policy, and the economics of digital ID itself. Here are the five stories that mattered. ...

DPI Brief — August 10, 2026 Parliament Passes Landmark Bill Opening Door for UPI Merchant Fees The Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 has been passed by both houses of Parliament, amending the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 to legally enable a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on UPI transactions. The Lok Sabha passed the bill on August 6, with the Rajya Sabha taking it up on August 11. The amendment removes the existing legal prohibition on charging fees for electronic payments, giving the government power to notify which modes remain free and at what thresholds. ...

DPI Deep Dive — Sunday | August 09, 2026 Layer L7: Security, Privacy & Trust — CERT-In, DPDP Act, TRAI, I4C, and the institutional framework safeguarding India’s digital public infrastructure. 1. e-Zero FIR Goes National: PRAGATI 52 Orders All-State Rollout After Digital Arrest Scams The 52nd PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation) meeting, chaired by the Prime Minister on June 24, delivered the most consequential cybersecurity-governance directive of 2026: all state governments must immediately implement the e-Zero FIR system developed by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C). ...