UPI, Financial Inclusion, and the Architecture of a Digital Economy: Evidence, Gaps, and the Road Ahead for India

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-772-9_38How to use a DOI?

Keywords

UPI; India Stack; Neo banking

Abstract

India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has emerged as the most consequential financial technology experiments in modern economic history, processing over 131 billion transactions worth ₹199.8 trillion in the fiscal year 2023–24 alone. Built on the India Stack — a layered digital public infrastructure comprising Aadhaar-based identity, eKYC, and the Account Aggregator framework — UPI has dramatically accelerated financial inclusion, bringing formal financial services to hundreds of millions of previously unbanked citizens. This paper offers a comprehensive analysis of UPI’s architecture and its role in reshaping the Indian fintech landscape. It examines the interplay between regulatory enablement and private-sector innovation, quantifies inclusion gains across income, geography, and gender dimensions, and critically evaluates persistent structural barriers, including the digital divide, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and gender-based dormancy. Drawing on data from the Reserve Bank of India, National Payments Corporation of India, World Bank Global Findex surveys, and peer-reviewed literature, the paper contends that while India has constructed a world-class payment rail, translating payment access into holistic financial inclusion — encompassing credit, insurance, and wealth creation — demands a second-generation policy agenda anchored in targeted digital literacy, AI-enabled risk assessment, and adaptive regulation.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Divya Thankom Varghese
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/07
TI  - UPI, Financial Inclusion, and the Architecture of a Digital Economy: Evidence, Gaps, and the Road Ahead for India
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Innovations and Challenges in Financial Technology (ICICFT 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 521
EP  - 537
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-772-9_38
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-772-9_38
ID  - Varghese2026
ER  -