I would guess NPCI being a private body with transaction charges being borne by the Indian government is a net negative in the long run. It costs everyone. NEFT and RTGS on the other hand is RBI regulated with clear pricing and costs only those involved. The cost structure needs to change, but then, it won’t be possible. To pay 5 rupees for a chocolate with your phone and get even 0.5 added on top would make the consumers switch to cash almost immediately.
Founded in December 2008, the NPCI is a government organisation registered under Section 8 of the Companies Act 2013, established by the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks' Association. The organisation is owned by a Government of India,[8] and has been promoted by the country's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India. The NPCI was incorporated in December 2008 and the Certificate of Commencement of Business was issued in April 2009. The authorised capital has been pegged at ₹3 billion (US$31 million) and paid-up capital is ₹1 billion (US$10 million).
Initially, there were ten promoter banks viz. State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citibank and HSBC. In 2016, the shareholding was diluted to include 13 additional public sector banks, 15 additional private sector banks, 1 additional foreign bank, 10 multi-state co-operative banks and 7 regional rural banks. The Board consists of Biswamohan Mahapatra as the Non Executive Chairman, Nominees from the Reserve Bank of India and Nominees from ten core promoter banks.[9] Dilip Asbe is the current managing director and chief executive officer of the NPCI after A. P. Hota, who retired from the post on 10 August 2017.
NPCI is a public sector company with partial ownership between 46 banks. Its costs is trivial compared to savings and efficiency it brings in overall system. Cash handling is very costly for entire chain. Printing by RBI, its logistics by banks and handling by vendors.
Apart from that it is formalization of informal economy, govt has better visibility, tax evasion is difficult and people outside financial services can now use it.
Also, like Rupay has charging for transactions abover a certain threshold of value like 10000 will cover some of the costs without reducing the incentive of system.
Think of vaccines, small cost for big savings elsewhere.
Fair enough. I am not knowledgeable enough to debate if it’s a net negative or positive. But “savings and efficiency” also has a negative side where people have lost life savings and bank accounts emptied in a matter of minutes.
UPI doesn’t help much with tax evasion. The biggest vehicle of tax evasion is property and cash is still the king there. UPI has been a good quality of life improvement for everyone. However there’s been cost involved, that should be considered.
All payment rails in India are RBI regulated directly or indirectly. NPCI is a non-profit section 8 company which is basically owned by the major PSU and private banks of India. And NPCI operates not just UPI, it also operates NEFT, IMPS, AEPS (aadhaar based payments), NETC (fastag), NFS (ATM network), Rupay debit/credit card network and BBPS (billpay). Only RTGS is operated by RBI directly.
Money serves its purpose while it's in motion. Increasing the velocity of money is good for economy. All the payment rails above do that 24/7/365 with lowest friction – by making all modes of payment possible and for free.
Digital payment rails is an order of magnitude cheaper (all inclusive) compared to cash rails. Accepting notes, counting, and depositing them, doing book-keeping and reconciling it against sales receipts, paying workers and vendors, avoiding leakage and theft etc – all cost time and money. For small merchants, it costs them time away from their business to handle cash.
UPI person-to-merchant (p2m) payments puts money instantly in their bank account. Their bank statements showing P2M deposits help them borrow for working capital at better interest rates.
Risk of theft with cash is much higher than digital theft from their bank accounts. RBI mandated 2FA, velocity checks, cooling-off periods, and awareness campaigns etc help people avoid scams.
W.r.t taxes, GST surveillance does catch merchants who accept high volume of P2M payments but aren't filing GST returns. Conversely, filing GST returns again helps with credit ratings and borrowing on better terms for working capital.
Thanks for the additional info. But I want to clarify one thing - I didn’t say anything about cash being a better choice. Both the comments to my response are making it out to be a cash vs digital thing. I am not sure why.
Next, NPCI is a PSU. So what? They are taking govt money to function aren’t they? The costs are borne by the banks which get allocations every budget to keep the system running. So whatever “profit” this PSU is making is literally just the government’s money paid through banks as transaction costs.
It helps with GST surveillance? Okay great. What about suitcases of cash that get passed around during land and property transactions?
2FA, velocity checks…etc., are things that came after the fact. For years no-one took responsibility for lost money. There was no redressal mechanism. ~Even today, does NCPI offers nothing as a redressal mechanism for scam transactions, it leaves it to the banks and individuals to sort it out. Which probably involves police complaints and follow up.~
Edit: I learnt that a redressal mechanism was finally introduced in 2025. So the above statement is invalid.
I genuinely have to ask, why is it hard to accept the shortcomings of the system and acknowledge the cost of running the system?
You’ve literally stated that you are “not knowledgeable enough to debate if it’s a net negative or positive.” and then you’re wondering why someone who has a significant amount of knowledge about the system in question is finding it “hard to accept the shortcomings of the system and acknowledge the cost of running the system”.
The real question is that given that you don’t know anything about the system, why would you find it so hard to accept that maybe your claims are incorrect? Further, the other poster is not stating that there are no costs of running the system. They’re claiming, correctly, that the costs are far lower than alternative mechanisms.
This is not even hard to see. The cost of running NCPI is trivial compared to VISA/Mastercard’s network, not least because being a private company trying to maximize profits VISA/Mastercard overload their core network costs with the costs of running a massive concierge, gift card and loyalty points business, which is where their profits lie.
If it is acknowledgement that you ( and others, I have spoken to various people on this topic) seek that UPI incurs costs, then here you go - I, a fellow tax-payer, acknowledge that the UPI must incur costs.
I find it acceptable to allocate tax money for a system that we as a country can use as an alternative to the Visa and MasterCard duopoly. With UPI as it is today, there are no margins added and passed to the customer, no transactions that are denied, no commissions cut. Payment is very fast, transactions can be proven. We are not at the mercy of any economic attack that the US would subject us to. Many are able to bank, are able to receive payments.
I find it not necessary that the UPI must show a profit. The direct and indirect benefits to the nation are far more important.
Also, "whataboutism" does not help. The suitcases and paintings and other such corruption examples that you cite require a separate investigation and redressal. One must not stop UPI or start charging the everyday person because some of the rich are corrupt. They will continue to exchange suitcases of cash for favours regardless of whether the UPI is chargable or if it even exists.