The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is gearing up to hit 200,000 transactions a day by the end of the year, the interoperable network's chief executive officer T Koshy said at the Moneycontrol Startup Conclave on July 7.
Koshy also said that ONDC is working to bring financial products to the network, and this is expected to happen in the next couple of months.
During a panel discussion on digital public infrastructure in the country, Aadhaar architect Pramod Varma said that while the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) only moves money, the opportunity for ONDC is much larger because it can be an intermediary for e-commerce in all categories.
"UPI is thin. It only moves money. The ONDC opportunity is truly wild... The effect of open networks is so large that eventually, it allows everyone in the world to participate and innovate," said Varma.
Backed by the government, ONDC seeks to prevent the dominance of a few large platforms in the e-commerce and food delivery sectors, such as Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, and Zomato.
With the network, the government hopes to increase e-commerce penetration in the country to 25 percent in the next two years, reaching 900 million buyers and 1.2 million sellers through the network. It is projected to generate a gross merchandise value of $48 billion.
ONDC is banking on three key pillars to reduce the cost of doing business for everyone, including retailers: dynamic pricing, inventory management, and delivery cost optimisation.
Speaking at the event, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) chief Dilip Asbe said that UPI has just scratched the surface of the payments landscape with 10 percent penetration.
"There is yet another 10X it can grow... We are also waiting for the RBI to come out with guidelines for credit on UPI," he said.
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