Kunal Shah, Founder of CRED, Hails UPI as a Global Game-Changer in Payments

• ByStartupStory     |    September 10, 2023

Kunal Shah, the founder of CRED, shared his insights on the transformative impact of India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on both the country and the global stage. According to Shah, UPI is a “game-changer” whose model has been successfully emulated by other nations.

“Brazil’s Pix, which is built on the same model as UPI, is witnessing a significant success in the country as it has contributed immensely in controlling inflation,” Shah said.

He further revealed that he always gives a demo of UPI to show the magic of UPI’s speed of processing payments to other countries.

“UPI is going to transform the country in the next 10 years or so and I think it will make a significant impact to the world as well,” Shah further added.

In a World Bank report appreciating the financial inclusion in India via Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), Kunal Shah said that the impact of UPI cannot be undermined in any way and the evolving stack is proving to be the key factor behind its success. “Every investor who comes to India is absolutely fascinated by UPI’s success,” he added.

India is far ahead as compared to other countries’ replicated version of UPI as the DPI is constantly evolving and other countries will have to accelerate to catch up with India’s speed in UPI payments, added Shah. “COVID played a key role in accelerating a lot of key things, especially in the case of digital payments in India,” Shah said.

Shah pointed out that several aspects of India’s digital infrastructure, including the account aggregator stack, GSTN (Goods and Services Tax Network), Ocean framework, and ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) framework, have the potential to transform industries and benefit multiple countries.

Kunal Shah further said that he believes that the introduction of credit lines on UPI is the most exciting thing that is happening in the payments space. He said that it has the potential to “completely change” the way people pay for goods and services.

Shah explained that credit lines on UPI will allow people to access small amounts of credit instantly and easily. This will make it easier for people to pay for unexpected expenses or to make purchases that they might not be able to afford with their existing cash flow.

Shah also said that credit lines on UPI will help to increase financial inclusion. This is because it will make it easier for people who do not have access to traditional forms of credit to get the credit they need.

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