The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is anticipating digital transactions across its platform to reach a billion daily and is upgrading its payment channels to deal with the uptick.
IT systems of the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS), Immediate Payment Services (IPS), National Automated Clearing House (NACH), and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will be revamped to cope with the increased traffic and to reduce hitches, sources told The Economic Times.
Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.
One source said the upgrades will deal with current concerns and “scope for future growth and related complications.”
The upgrades are expected to focus on three key areas: architectural revamp of IT systems to better deal with credit return pile-ups, improving volume capabilities, and reducing exposure to outside outages e.g. as seen with State Bank of India and HDFC Bank, sources added.
NPCI did not respond to queries, as per the report.
Completion of the system overhaul is planned by FY21-end. Upgrade of NACH and UPI systems was started in January 2021 and that of IMPS and AePS is expected to start now and finish by March, the sources added.
“NCPI leaders reached out to payment participants in private forums requesting patience for the duration of these migrations, as some upgrades may face teething issues,” another source told the paper.
Notably, the NPCI on February 9 admitted to “teething issues” with a newly implemented system on NACH after reports emerged of investors missing out on the post-Budget market rally due to technical glitches.
Reports had earlier emerged that investors were unable to get the MF units they purchased in time because of the troubles with the settlement system operated by the NPCI.
It can be noted that the Budget announcement on February 1 and following trading sessions saw a nearly 10 percent rally in benchmark indices, and a delay in crediting the units purchased meant investors who bought the units online missed out on the gains.
A recently announced regulatory change on NAV implemented by markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) only aggravated the troubles.
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