Cashfree Payments has received certification from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for its UPI (Acquiring) Switch, which has now begun processing transactions. The UPI Switch facilitates communication between core banking systems and NPCI's UPI infrastructure, ensuring reliable and efficient transaction processing.

The system supports up to 12,000 transactions per second, enabling businesses to manage high-volume payment events such as major sales and sporting events without experiencing disruptions or payment failures. It also offers improved success rates – up to 5% higher – while giving businesses control over UPI payment acceptance, including faster onboarding, instant refunds, and better visibility into transaction failures. Developed in partnership with NSDL as the sponsor bank, the UPI Switch incorporates fraud detection capabilities using machine learning, helping to minimise losses by identifying and blocking suspicious transactions.

It also reduces customer inquiries by providing clear reasons for payment failures and supporting features like payment retries and proactive reversals of invalid transactions. The switch is compatible with various UPI payment methods, including UPI Credit, UPI PPI, UPI Collect, Dynamic QR codes, and UPI AutoPay, ensuring flexibility for businesses. It also allows for quick adoption of new NPCI features as they are introduced.

Role of NPCI in India’s payment ecosystem The NPCI plays a pivotal role in India’s payments ecosystem, acting as the backbone of various digital payment systems, including the widely-used UPI. Established in 2008 under the guidance of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), NPCI was created to build a unified infrastructure that would facilitate secure, scalable, and efficient payment solutions. Its development of UPI in 2016 improved digital payments in India by allowing real-time transactions between bank accounts using smartphones, making financial transactions accessible and easy for millions of people across the country.

By managing and maintaining crucial payment systems such as UPI, Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS), and RuPay cards, NPCI ensures interoperability between banks, financial institutions, and consumers. It plays a key role in fostering competition, reducing costs for businesses, and improving the overall efficiency of the financial system. NPCI’s efforts have led to the rapid adoption of cashless transactions, providing businesses with tools to handle large-scale transactions while ensuring secure and reliable payment processing for consumers.

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