Replicating UPI’s success abroad will be tough. (Think high card penetration, reluctant banks)

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UPI QR Codes (Standee) are Kept outside for Cashless payments at a medical store in Gurugram on the outskirts of New Delhi, India on 16 May 2020.

Synopsis
A confluence of several conducive factors led to UPI’s roaring success in India. While the government wants to deploy a payments framework similar to UPI in 30 other countries, it will be greeted by challenges in the form of bureaucracy, financial viability, competition from similar platforms, and more.

Call it a “shining example” of what a homegrown technology stack can achieve when the government, the regulator, banks and fintech players join forces. When the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) launched Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on April 11, 2016, to facilitate instant digital fund transfers, even its most optimistic believer didn’t think it would help India become the world’s largest real-time payments market ahead of China