Monday, May 20

“5-Decade Journey In 6-Years”: World Bank Praises India’s Digital Public Infra, Hails UPI

Edited by Meenu Mathew
"5-Decade Journey In 6-Years": World Bank Praises India's Digital Public Infra, Hails UPI

The World Bank on Friday appreciated India’s achievement in the field of digital public infrastructure and followed transformative impact through a G20 document.

The document titled The G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) has closely noted the transformative impact of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in India for the past ten years, under the Narendra Modi-led NDA government. The pivotal role of government policies and regulations in shaping the DPI landscape is detailed in the report.

“India achieved remarkable landmarks in just six years, accomplishments that would typically have taken nearly five decades to realise”, the World Bank noted.

According to Business Today, the statement also features, how India has developed a robust digital public goods infrastructure, with the introduction of UPI (Unified Payments Interface), Jan Dhan, Aadhar, ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce), and CoWin ( web portal for COVID-19 vaccination registration).

The World Bank underscores the significance of the “JAM Trinity” (Jan Dhan, Aadhar, Mobile), which combines universal bank account access, Aadhaar identification, and mobile connectivity, says reports.

“While DPIs’ role in this leapfrogging is undoubtable, other ecosystem variables and policies that build on the availability of DPIs were critical. These included interventions to create a more enabling legal and regulatory framework, national policies to expand account ownership, and leveraging Aadhaar for identity verification”, Business Today quoted The G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion. 

“India’s leap in financial inclusion, powered by Digital Public Infrastructure!”, wrote Prime Minister on Friday reacting to the document, on X (formerly Twitter).

“A G20 document prepared by the WorldBank shared a very interest point on India’s growth. India has achieved financial inclusion targets in just 6 years which would otherwise have taken at least 47 long years”, said Mr Modi.

“Compliments to our robust digital payment infrastructure and the spirit of our people. It is equally a testament to rapid progress and innovation”, he added.

The document includes India’s attainment’s in digital public infrastructure through the Jan Dhan Yojana (JAM) Trinity, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs), UPI-PayNow interlinking between India and Singapore and many more.

According to the report, India in just six years, has catapulted its financial inclusion rate from 25% in 2008 to over 80% of adults. The report also highlighted the phenomenal success of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) with over 9.41 billion transactions valued at about Rs 14.89 lakh crore taking place in May 2023 alone.