https://techmonitor.ai/policy/digital-economy/india-digital-payments-upi-inspiring-developing-nations-cyber-scammers

Shortly before his interview with Tech Monitor, Nitin Chittal was driving through Mumbai when he noticed that his car had developed a puncture. He pulled over on the highway, where an independent roadside vendor quickly fixed the vehicle. The transaction came to around ₹300 — less than £3. Chittal, a digital payments consultant, paid using a QR code. “I didn't have any cash,” he says. “I just paid by UPI.”

India’s state-backed Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which was first launched in 2016, is a platform for free and fast account-to-account transfers, which are facilitated by QR codes or virtual IDs. Created by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), UPI connects more than 300 banks and enables seamless financial transactions through mobile applications like Google Pay, Amazon Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm.