The RBI's latest vision document for payment and settlement systems, which outlines the road map for 2019 to 2021, aims to achieve a cash-lite society . To that end it proposes to examine round-the-clock availability of various payment systems, including NEFT

The move had been approved by the GST Council before the Lok Sabha polls juggernaut started rolling. The details of the payment mechanism are currently being worked out at the finance ministry in an attempt to clamp down on tax evasion

Amazon that rolled out UPI with Axis Bank in February intends to offer the entire suite of payment products to its UPI users with its peer-to-peer payments.

Promoted by 10 banks in India under the aegis of the IBA, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) aims to become the \"best payments network globally\". Presently, 56 banks are shareholders of NPCI.

However, the timeline for implementing phase 2 and phase 3 shall remain unchanged from the date of completion of phase 1

The UN report noted that since 2016, North Korea has become an increasingly sophisticated actor in cyberattacks for financial gain and evading sanctions, citing the Cosmos Bank heist as an example.

Xiaomi claims to have deeply integrated Mi Pay within MIUI and can be used to send money directly to bank accounts from the SMS, Contacts and Scanner apps, and will be available for download from Mi App Store.

Users will be able to make payments on this app in the similar fashion as on Paytm and other UPI based payment apps but they will only be able to pay other users who use Mi Pay app.

UPI has seen exponential growth during the last year, with volume growing four times and value growing seven times in December 2018 over the corresponding month in 2017.

UPI has been the biggest game changer in the digital payment space, but new channels could be rolled out in the new year.