UPI’s Next Phase Must Focus on Creating More Value, Not Just More Transactions: PayU CEO Anirban Mukherjee
City Air News
Aug 12, 2026 02:13
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Anirban Mukherjee, CEO, PayU
“UPI has changed the way India pays and has been one of the most successful digital public infrastructure initiatives globally. This is the result of a decade of quiet investment by banks, fintechs and payment providers together, and is one of the most powerful contributions by Indian fintechs to the ecosystem. Payments infrastructure, merchant servicing, security, compliance and fraud prevention, however, require continuous investments. So does scaling infrastructure, cybersecurity and fraud risk management, and building for what comes next, including agentic commerce, AI-native payments and new ways for merchants to grow.
As UPI deepens its reach, it also lays the foundation for something even more transformative, that is credit. Affordable, accessible, data-driven credit for merchants and consumers who have never had it.
A calibrated MDR framework for larger merchants could help get us there, without compromising the accessibility that made UPI successful in the first place. For core UPI, zero MDR has been the right call; it is what allowed the ecosystem to reach smaller merchants and drive adoption at scale. The next chapter of UPI cannot only be about processing more transactions. For UPI to now leapfrog into the next phase, it needs to be about creating more value with every transaction, for consumers, merchants and the ecosystem that powers them.”
