Why UPI’s success needs a backup plan : Dr. R. Srinivasan

In a piece for Forbes India, Dr. R. Srinivasan, Strategy area, and Balakrishnan M., Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Center for Digital Public Goods, IIMB, ask: what’s next for QR-based payments?

‘UPI: The Imperative for a unified QR ecosystem’ reflects on a growing structural fault line in India’s digital payments ecosystem. While UPI QRs are interoperable within the UPI ecosystem across banks, prepaid issuers, and apps, they remain incompatible with other major payment networks like Visa and Mastercard. Its near-ubiquitous use and exclusion of major payment networks risks introducing potential points of failure.