Analysis And Anti-Trust Regulations In Indian UPI Payment Service Sector

Pranjal Singh, Amity Law School Noida

ABSTRACT

With more than 1.3 billion transactions per month in 2019, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) surpassed the one billion transaction mark. The rapid growth of UPI over the last three years has piqued the interest of policymakers all over the world. It is now widely acknowledged that there has been a significant shift in public policy and institutional practise. Payment systems have always been privately owned duopolies around the world due to the nature of the business. As merchants and customers seek out the most popular payment methods on the largest platforms, network effects result in a market dominated by a small number of large players. UPI, which was created to be open and interoperable, can now be used to make payments. Any bank can offer UPI to its customers or third-party payment apps like Google Pay and PhonePe thanks to NPCI's backend system.

Customers can choose from over a hundred different UPI applications right now. UPI was built from the ground up to be interoperable, which is a policy innovation. As payment networks have grown rapidly, many countries have made regulatory efforts to facilitate interoperability. Even the NPCI's bank shareholders didn't think it stood a chance three years ago. The rapid growth of UPI has demonstrated that India can build a world-class payment infrastructure from the ground up.

Keywords: Digital payments, Unified Payment Interface (UPI), Immediate Payments Service (IMPS), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), Competition Act,