The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-H) to jointly research and build cybersecurity capabilities for India’s fast-growing digital payments ecosystem. The partnership, announced by the institute on 27 October 2026, brings together the organisation that runs UPI and other national payment rails with one of the country’s leading technology research campuses.
The collaboration will span research and development, specialised training, knowledge exchange and capacity building, with the stated aim of tackling emerging cyber threats and improving the security and resilience of the systems that carry billions of transactions every month.
Cyber Manthan Centre to anchor the work
On the IIIT-H side, the engagement will be led by the institute’s Cyber Manthan Centre (CMC), which works across cybersecurity, digital forensics and trusted infrastructure. Institute Director Prof. Sandeep K. Shukla will steer IIIT-H’s participation. The signing in Hyderabad was attended by NPCI Managing Director and CEO Dilip Asbe, Prof. Shukla and Cyber MANTHAN COO Mridul Chamoli.
Under the MoU, the two organisations will focus on:
- Joint R&D aimed at practical, deployable solutions for payment security;
- Payment-specific threat research, including how emerging technologies can be applied to harden digital transactions;
- Specialised training and industry-oriented learning to build a skilled cybersecurity workforce; and
- Knowledge exchange and research engagement between NPCI teams, faculty, students and professionals.
Why it matters for fintech
As UPI volumes climb past 24 billion transactions a month, the attack surface for fraud, social engineering and infrastructure threats grows with it. Banks, payment apps and fintech platforms all ride on NPCI’s rails, so security research that starts at the network level can flow down to every participant in the ecosystem.
Dilip Asbe said securing the expanding digital payments ecosystem requires continuous innovation, trained professionals and preparedness for evolving cyber threats, and that the collaboration would combine industry experience with academic expertise to develop practical solutions. Prof. Shukla said the partnership offers a platform to study cybersecurity challenges specific to digital payments while helping students, researchers and professionals build the skills needed to secure next-generation payment systems.
The tie-up also addresses a persistent gap for the BFSI sector: a shortage of security talent with domain knowledge of payments. By pairing live payment-system experience with academic research and training, NPCI and IIIT-H are betting that a deeper bench of specialists will be as important as new tools in keeping India’s digital payments safe and trusted.
