The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is Section 8 umbrella organisation under the Payments industry which focuses on operations of retail payments and settlement systems in India. It was founded way back in 2008 and is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. India has emerged as the fastest growing FinTech market and the third largest FinTech ecosystem in the world. With the FinTech Industry gradually taking over the modern banking and financial sector especially with customer inclusion and easier services, the NPCI has been developing better products and services like Unified Payments Interface, Rupay, etc. to make retail payments easier for consumers and companies. The organisation has been largely responsible for the digital transformation of the payments industry in India and continues to work towards the same.

About National Payments Corporation of India 

NPCI is a not-for-profit organisation which is registered under Section 8 of the Companies Act 2013. It was established by the Reserve Bank of India and Indian Banks’ Association. When they began, they had ten banks that promoted them including 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. Presently, Dilip Asbe is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the NPCI.

NCPI also gets offers from nations around Asia, Africa and the Middle East to improve their payment infrastructure. They have been focusing keenly on the Internationalization of RuPay and Unified Payment Interface (UPI). 

Services offered by NPCI 

• Aadhaar Enabled Payment System

It is a  network of Micro ATMs which allows basic interoperable banking transactions through the Business correspondent of any bank by using Aadhaar authentication. In July 2019, NCPI announced that the transactions of Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) crossed 200 million. 

• Bharat Bill Payment System

It is a one-stop platform for payment of all bills, providing “Anytime Anywhere” bill payment service to all customers across India. It has multiple modes of payment and provides instant confirmation of payment via an SMS or receipt. They also plan to include insurance premium, mutual funds, school fees, institution fees, credit cards, local taxes, invoice payments, etc. in the future. 

• BharatQR
  

It is a common QR code developed by NPCI in collaboration with American Express, Mastercard and Visa for ease of payments and interoperability.

• BHIM Aadhaar Pay

BHIM is a mobile app to act as Client software for the Unified Payments Interface. BHIM Aadhaar Pay is an Aadhaar based payments interface which allows real time payments to Merchants. 

• Cheque Truncation System

CTS is based on an online image-based cheque clearing system where cheque images and magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) data are captured at the collecting bank branch and transmitted electronically.

• RuPay

RuPay is a domestic card scheme of India which is now accepted at all ATMs, Point-of-Sale terminals and most online merchants in the country. Rupay Contactless on the other hand is a contactless payment technology which does not require physical swiping or insertion of cards.

• Unified Payments Interface

Unified Payments Interface is a real-time interbank payment system that works 24×7 on all working days and holidays. Integrated with 120 banks in India, it is a platform for sending or receiving money To initiate fund transfer, users have to use any UPI supporting Android or iOS app, link their bank accounts and generate BHIM UPI PIN. Funds can be transferred via Virtual Payment Address (VPA), Account number & IFSC, QR code, Mobile number and Aadhaar.