In a groundbreaking move set to redefine India’s digital payment ecosystem, Razorpay, the leading payment gateway provider, has unveiled its own UPI infrastructure, UPI Switch, a next-generation cloud-based innovation, in collaboration with Airtel Payments Bank. The solution increases success rates by 4-5% and can manage up to 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) at any given moment. UPI Switch would also provide 5X faster access to UPI technologies for enterprises.
UPI (Unified Payments Interface) has become India’s favourite payment mechanism, accounting for 70% of digital transactions. UPI transactions reached a record high of Rs 18.41 trillion in January 2024, demonstrating the technology’s increasing growth. With the introduction of additional payment mechanisms such as credit cards, wallets, and credit lines, UPI is expected to surpass 2 billion transactions per day by 2030. This growth has transformed UPI into a comprehensive payment network that accepts a variety of modes, including savings and current accounts, credit cards, prepaid wallets, and credit lines. This rise points to a considerable increase in UPI transaction volumes in the near future.
The success of UPI transactions is heavily reliant on the UPI infrastructure installed at banks. Banks connect to the current UPI infrastructure to allow seamless communication between core banking systems and UPI technology while executing transactions. This infrastructure is known as a UPI switch and is powered by Technology Service Providers (TSPs) for banks. It holds the power to process UPI transactions at scale and enable new UPI innovations for millions of businesses to access. Currently, the existing infrastructure lacks customisation features for enterprises with clearly defined demands and the potential to scale and improve performance. This leads to scalability challenges, technical declines, and downtimes, all of which have an influence on the overall customer experience. Furthermore, legacy TSPs struggle to stay compliant, which limits their capacity to innovate and fulfil the needs of modern organisations.
Addressing these problems, Razorpay‘s UPI Switch prepares India for the future by providing a comprehensive infrastructure that solves all of the aforementioned challenges while improving the business experience with its suite of features. It excels at dispute resolution, resolving disputes 7X faster, in 24 hours, versus the industry average of 7 days. Furthermore, it can process refunds instantaneously, compared to the industry standard of up to three days, assuring a consistent consumer experience. Razorpay UPI Switch will serve as the underlying framework for all future UPI advancements, as well as supporting current Razorpay UPI breakthroughs like Turbo UPI and TPAP solutions.
Commenting on the launch, Khilan Haria, Head of Payments Product at Razorpay said, “India has always been at the forefront of innovation in the digital payments ecosystem and its possibilities have compounded in the last few years, thanks to the versatility of UPI. As a result, the country has been able to set a global standard, emphasizing the need to continually raise the bar with each advancement. Razorpay’s UPI Switch is designed with a similar vision to provide scalability and the best performance to businesses. This venture into UPI Infrastructure marks a strategic move to manage the end-to-end merchant experience and provide the industry’s leading stack. With latency below 100 milliseconds, a 4-5% increase in success rates, and features customized to suit business needs, our switch is crafted to enrich the payment experience and ensure that businesses can now manage the surge in UPI transactions on any sale or non-sale day.”
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He added, “At Razorpay, innovation is at the core of everything we do. We are proud to be a driving force behind the transformation of India’s digital payments ecosystem and are committed to continuing to deliver innovative solutions that will change how businesses engage with their customers.”
Ganesh Ananthanarayanan, Chief Operating Officer of Airtel Payments Bank said “We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with Razorpay, aimed at providing our customers with a seamless, secure, and scalable payment experience. Our integration with Razorpay’s UPI Switch, a cloud-based infrastructure for the most advanced UPI Stack, ensures 99.99% uptime and enables up to 10,000+ transactions per second. As UPI transactions continue to surge, our collaboration sets a new standard for business payments, aligning perfectly with the vision of a digital India.”
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