National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella organisation for all retail payments system in the country launched next generation online payments solution Unified Payments Interface (UPI) which will leverage trends such as increasing smartphone adoption and deeper penetration of mobile data.

UPI will empower users to perform instant push and pull transactions seamlessly which will transform the way people make payments today.

Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched UPI along with Mr.Nandan Nilekani, Advisor to NPCI, Mr. Balachandran M., Chairman, Mr. A P Hota, MD & CEO and Mr. Dilip Asbe, COO, NPCI in Mumbai.

"Today a few banks have gone live with UPI out of 29 banks that had concurred to provide UPI service to their customers. We are confident that several banks will join UPI this year and the number will multiply further.

Our focus is in line with RBI's vision of migrating towards a "less-cash‟ and more digital society.

NPCI has always been at the forefront to innovate and introduce new products and services at par with global standards," said Mr. A. P. Hota, MD & CEO, NPCI.

Mr. Nandan Nilekani, Advisor to NPCI explained a few UPI use cases and addressed the forum to showcase "How UPI shall change the landscape of Payments in the country‟.

At the event, winners of UPI Hackathon were also felicitated. It was a platform provided for start-up/developer community to accelerate innovation in payments arena in association with Indian Software Product Industry Round Table (iSPIRT).

Vsoft Nerds, CPay, Fundu, Ultra Cash, Enablers emerged as top five winners of UPI Hackathon.

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