{
  "id": 3132472,
  "title": "UPI@10: How platform changed the way we pay",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/24/upi-10-how-platform-changed-the-way-we-pay",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-08-24T22:40:36.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Times of India",
    "slug": "times-of-india",
    "url": "https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/upi10-how-platform-changed-the-way-we-pay/articleshow/133483190.cms"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "MUMBAI — The UPI (Unified Payments Interface) platform has transformed the global landscape of real-time payments. Since its launch in April 2016, under the NDA government's initiative, UPI has witnessed an astounding growth, surging from a mere 1.8 crore transactions in FY17 to a staggering 24,162 crore transactions in FY26, marking an impressive 13,000-fold increase. UPI celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2026, coinciding with its inception as a solution to the limitations of the existing IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) platform.\n\nUPI was conceived to address the challenge of immediate merchant payments, which cards could not cater to. In contrast to IMPS, which was primarily a person-to-person transfer system, UPI was designed to simplify merchant payments, involve non-bank payment providers, reduce e-commerce payment failures, and utilize open-source technology and APIs. This led to a radical departure from IMPS, with UPI adopting an entirely new solution that retained only its reliable real-time settlement engine.\n\nPramod Verma, a technology architect instrumental in shaping UPI's open, interoperable framework, explained that the platform was designed to be API-driven, with third-party application service providers. The design was deliberately decentralized, incorporating a network of banks, enabling real-time resolution of payment addresses. Dilip Asbe, the current chief of NPCI and former COO, emphasized the platform's decentralized nature in a podcast with Verma. The architects built advanced capabilities into the core protocol while adopting a phased rollout strategy, beginning with basic peer-to-peer transfers before adding features like recurring mandates.\n\nUPI's remarkable scale is now quantified in billions of transactions, a feat that Hota, in his 2017 farewell speech, had predicted would be achieved within a few years.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}