Two Ways To Boost The Adoption Of UPI Lite

A couple of years ago, ET Prime reported that core banking systems (CBS) at Indian banks were creaking under the load of burgeoning UPI volumes. Being an account to account realtime method of payment (A2A RTP MOP), every UPI transaction pings the CBS of the payor’s  bank. Suppose a payor (aka remitter) spends a total … Read more

Innovation Is Not Invention

Innovation is not Invention. Invention is a new thing. Innovation is a new way of doing an existing thing that amplifies impact through broader reach. Let me cite a few examples to drive home this difference. 1. AirBnB During Oktoberfest, the city of Munich with a population of 1.2 million residents receives roughly seven million … Read more

Google Play Store – Small Brother Shouldn’t Act Like Big Brother!

To: editet@timesgroup.com Subject: Big Tech, Don’t Be A Big Brother Dear Editor of Economic Times: This has reference to the op-ed entitled Big Tech, Don’t Be A Big Brother by Dhanendra Kumar, Former Chairman, Competition Commission of India (CCI), in The Economic Times. This article is full of factual and logical inaccuracies. Let me list … Read more

UPI – Too Many Or Not Nearly Enough Players?

On the one hand, there are 48 Payments Services Providers offering UPI payments in India. Which is a lot. On the other hand, many people say there are very few UPI players and claim that there’s a huge concentration risk in UPI. This FUD narrative has scaled new heights after RBI recently cracked down on … Read more

My Two Cents On PayTM Kerfuffle

PayTM is the first digital payment product I’ve used at scale in India. When RBI enforced the two factor authentication mandate for online payments, bill payments became a major PITA. By requiring users to fill credit card number, expiration date, and half a dozen fields, Reg 2FA caused tremendous friction. After they received the OTP, … Read more

Economic Times Publishes My Take On Play Store v. App Developers Controversy

Google Play Store provides the following services to Android app developers: Listing Discovery Distribution Commerce platform Training Google does not charge any fixed fees for these services. Like most companies in their early days, app developers are short of funds when they start out. While they have aspirations to build for the world, do marketing, … Read more

28 Versus 30 Days Plans Of TELCOs

This post is a slightly edited version of my answer to the following Quora question: In coming up with plans with 28 days’ validity, I’m guessing TELCOs have been inspired by one of the 29 Psychological Tricks To Make You Buy More that leverage inherent biases exhibited by consumers. According to this Visual Capitalist article, … Read more

Why Doesn’t UPI / A2A RTP Provide Scam / Fraud Protection?

There’s a lot of buzz around cybercrime. Not a week goes by when we don’t hear of someone or the other losing money to scammers and fraudsters via UPI and other A2A RTPs. Let’s consider the following ubiquituous cybercrime described in Why Is It So Hard To Catch Cybercriminals?. Joe uses UPI to buy something … Read more

How To Revive Interoperability In UPI

In Interoperability – The Sole Loser In UPI, we saw why interoperability has been compromised in UPI. In this post, we’ll explore ways to revive this noble goal. Some people advocate education campaigns to increase awareness of VPA and thereby revive interoperability. Once people know what a VPA is, first they would ensure better VPAs and … Read more