Businesses to get access to UPI innovations 5X faster, compared to the industry standards of 10 months
Khilan Haria, Head of Payments Product at Razorpay
FinTech BizNews Service
Mumbai, April 23, 2024: From building India’s leading Payment Gateway (PG) to expanding
into offline payments to introducing its first PG in Malaysia, Razorpay remains committed to its core
vision of empowering businesses in India and globally through relentless industry-first innovations
and solving for all things payments. Today, Razorpay launches its own UPI infrastructure with UPI
Switch, a next-generation cloud-based innovation, in partnership with Airtel Payments Bank.
Boosting success rates by 4-5%, the solution is designed to handle up to 10,000 transactions per
second (TPS) at any given time. UPI Switch will also enable 5X faster access to UPI innovations for
businesses.
UPI (Unified Payments Interface) has become India's preferred payment method, representing 70% of
digital transactions. In January 2024, UPI transactions reached a record Rs 18.41 trillion,
showcasing its rapid adoption. With the addition of new payment methods like credit cards, wallets,
and credit lines, UPI is projected to reach 2 billion transactions per day by 2030. This evolution has
turned UPI into a comprehensive payment platform, supporting various modes such as savings and
current accounts, credit cards, prepaid wallets, and credit lines. This growth indicates a significant
surge in UPI transaction volumes in the near future.
How does the UPI Switch work? The success of UPI transactions has a strong dependency on the
UPI infrastructure deployed at the banks. Banks connect with the existing UPI infrastructure to
facilitate seamless communication between core banking systems and UPI technology while
processing a UPI transaction. This infrastructure is called a UPI switch and is powered by Technology
Service Providers (TSPs) for banks. It holds the power to process UPI transactions at scale and enable
new UPI innovations for millions of businesses to access. Currently, the existing infrastructure lacks
customization features for businesses with clearly differentiated needs, or the capability to handle
scale and enhance performance. This results in scalability issues, technical declines, and
downtimes that impact overall customer experience. Additionally, legacy TSPs struggle to remain
compliant, hindering their ability to innovate and meet the demands of new-age businesses.
Addressing these challenges, Razorpay's UPI Switch readies India for the future and provides a
holistic infrastructure that solves all the above challenges and enhances the experience of businesses
with its range of features. It excels in dispute resolution, resolving issues 7X faster, within 24 hours
than the industry average of 7 days. Moreover, it can process refunds instantly compared to the
industry standard of up to 3 days, ensuring a seamless customer experience. Razorpay UPI Switch
will be the foundational platform that will drive all future UPI innovations along with powering current
Razorpay UPI innovations such as Turbo UPI, and TPAP solutions.
Commenting on the launch, Khilan Haria, Head of Payments Product at Razorpay said, “India has
always been at the forefront of innovation in the digital payments ecosystem and its possibilities
have compounded in the last few years, thanks to the versatility of UPI. As a result, the country has
been able to set a global standard, emphasizing the need to continually raise the bar with each
advancement. Razorpay’s UPI Switch is designed with a similar vision to provide scalability and the
best performance to businesses. This venture into UPI Infrastructure marks a strategic move to
manage the end-to-end merchant experience and provide the industry's leading stack. With
latency below 100 milliseconds, a 4-5% increase in success rates, and features customized to suit
business needs, our switch is crafted to enrich the payment experience and ensure that businesses
can now manage the surge in UPI transactions on any sale or non-sale day.”
He added, “At Razorpay, innovation is at the core of everything we do. We are proud to be a driving
force behind the transformation of India's digital payments ecosystem and are committed to
continuing to deliver innovative solutions that will change how businesses engage with their
customers.”
Ganesh Ananthanarayanan, Chief Operating Officer of Airtel Payments Bank said “We're thrilled
to announce our partnership with Razorpay, aimed at providing our customers with a seamless,
secure, and scalable payment experience. Our integration with Razorpay's UPI Switch, a cloud-based
infrastructure for the most advanced UPI Stack, ensures 99.99% uptime and enables up to 10,000+
transactions per second. As UPI transactions continue to surge, our collaboration sets a new
standard for business payments, aligning perfectly with the vision of a digital India."
Razorpay has been leading UPI innovation since 2017, starting with enabling payment acceptance,
introducing the UPI Autopay feature, to enabling credit card payments on UPI, and credit lines on UPI.
Recently, Razorpay also launched ‘Turbo UPI’, India's fastest one-step UPI payment solution. This
foray into UPI Infrastructure signifies a strategic step towards managing the entire merchant
experience and offering the foremost industry stack.
