GPay, BharatPe, Razorpay, Paytm partner with NPCI to introduce credit card transactions on UPI

India's National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and several leading payment aggregators such as BharatPe, Google Pay, Razorpay, Paytm, PayU and Pine Labs have come together to enable credit card transactions on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in India, following a recent move by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to link RuPay credit cards to UPI. The initiative aims to provide customers with an instant payment experience through UPI while also offering the benefits of short-term credit and rewards offered by credit cards.

Before the RBI's move, UPI users were only able to make transactions through their bank accounts, overdraft accounts, and prepaid accounts. However, the linkage of RuPay credit cards to UPI will eliminate the need for customers to carry their credit cards with them for payments. The move is expected to lead to a rise in acceptability, as UPI provides customers with more points of acceptance through the vast network of asset-light UPI QR codes. This move is especially beneficial for merchants in semi-urban areas, where card point-of-sale terminals are not widely available.

India has over 250 million unique users and five crore merchants on the UPI platform, which has become one of the most inclusive modes of payment in the country. In January alone, UPI processed 8038.59 million transactions, amounting to 1,299,058.78 crore. According to the RBI Payments Vision for 2025, credit-based payment transactions are expected to grow by 16% year-on-year for the next four years.

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Nalin Bansal, Chief of Corporate and Fintech Relationships and Key Initiatives, NPCI, said, "India is one of the select few nations that has been successful in premiering innovation through targeted regulations. And after the RBI’s decision to start linking RuPay credit cards to UPI, we immediately started enabling leading payment aggregators to boost merchant acceptance and customer awareness in a bid to attract early and widespread adoption." The move is expected to provide access to a hassle-free and smooth payments experience for individuals and merchants alike, heading into the future.

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