As UPI becomes routine infrastructure for people and businesses, payment availability is more than a technical metric. In an ET Edge Insights interview published October 3, 2026, Raj Jain, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of RS Software, argues that resilience, fraud-risk management and cybersecurity are essential to preserving trust in real-time payments.
What is UPI?
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) defines UPI as an instant payment system it developed, built over IMPS, that enables transfers between bank accounts. It is a payments rail—not a bank account and not one particular consumer app. Different apps can offer access to the same underlying system.
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The ET Edge Insights interview describes RS Software as a technology partner to NPCI in UPI’s development. That is the interview’s account of the company’s role; it does not make UPI a proprietary RS Software product.
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How does India Stack fit into the picture?
India Stack is an ecosystem of open APIs and digital public goods, not a single app or vendor platform. The Government of India overview names components including Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, e-Sign, e-KYC, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. Together, such building blocks can support identity, document exchange, electronic signatures, payments and service delivery.
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The distinction matters: UPI is one component of a broader digital infrastructure. Aadhaar and the other named services have different functions; they should not be treated as interchangeable parts of a payment app.
What does UPI’s reported scale show?
A 2026 Press Information Bureau (PIB), Government of India, factsheet reports that UPI served more than 55.49 crore individuals and 6.5 crore merchants, with 731 banks connected. PIB also reports that UPI accounted for 85% of India’s digital payment transactions by volume in FY 2025–26 and was accepted in 11 foreign countries. These are figures published by PIB, tied to its factsheet and stated reporting period; they are not independently verified counts here, and the 85% figure is not a share of all payments by value.
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The figures describe a large domestic footprint and some international acceptance. They do not, by themselves, establish that UPI is faster, safer or more widely used than every other country’s real-time payment system.
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Jain’s argument is that instant digital payments change the risk environment compared with card-based payments: transactions move quickly, so risk management must operate at the pace of the system. He says older fraud-detection approaches are inadequate for that shift and advocates a unified, real-time risk-management layer. The interview presents this as his view, not as an independent technical audit of UPI’s controls.
“Cybersecurity, therefore, became central to the payment ecosystem, not as an add-on, but as core infrastructure required to protect trust, continuity and adoption.”
Jain also says, “Availability is no longer just a technical metric. It is a national priority.” At UPI’s reported scale, outages or weak safeguards could affect everyday transactions and confidence in digital payments, which is why availability and security belong in infrastructure planning rather than being treated as optional extras.
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The Reserve Bank of India’s July 29, 2024 publication offers a separate, regulator-level perspective: digitalisation can support growth, financial inclusion, fiscal transfers and cross-border payments, while also creating risks involving cybersecurity, data privacy and concentration. This is a broad account of digitalisation’s challenges, not evidence of a specific UPI vulnerability or incident.
What consumers should do with their UPI PIN
For personal safety, NPCI’s UPI FAQ warns: “Please do not share your UPI-PIN with anyone.” NPCI also says bank customer support will never ask for it. Keep this advice in its proper scope: protecting a PIN is important, but it is not a substitute for the system-wide security and fraud controls Jain is discussing.
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What can—and can’t—be concluded about UPI globally?
The interview raises the question of what makes UPI unique among real-time payment systems, but a defensible country-to-country ranking requires comparable evidence. Useful comparison points include:
- Access and interoperability: which banks and payment apps participate, and how users connect to the system.
- Speed and availability: how quickly transfers settle and how consistently the service operates.
- Onboarding and accessibility: who can register and what requirements apply.
- Reach: participating institutions, users and merchants, measured on comparable terms.
- Protection and recourse: fraud controls, dispute handling and consumer protections.
- Cross-border use: whether the system supports domestic payments only or has defined links abroad.
PIB’s report of acceptance in 11 foreign countries is a specific claim about acceptance, not proof of universal availability or superiority over other national systems. Without aligned measures across countries, the sound conclusion is narrower: UPI is a major Indian payment rail, and its reported scale makes resilience, fraud management and public trust central concerns.
Quick Recap
Sources
- ET Edge Insights interview with Raj Jain, October 3, 2026
- NPCI UPI FAQ
- Press Information Bureau, Government of India, 2026 UPI factsheet
- Reserve Bank of India, publication dated July 29, 2024
- Government of India India Stack overview
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