The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released its “Payments Vision 2028”, setting out a policy roadmap for India’s digital payments ecosystem through December 2028.
The strategy is positioned under the theme “Shaping India’s Payment Frontier”.
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The central bank said the plan will focus on user empowerment, measures to address fraud, improving cross-border payments efficiency, and supporting ease of doing business for payment service providers.
As part of the announced initiatives, RBI said it will develop an interoperability framework for Trade Receivables Discounting Systems (TReDS). The proposal is intended to improve integration across receivables financing platforms and support access to working capital for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
RBI also plans to explore a “switch on/off” facility across digital payment modes. Similar controls are currently available for domestic and international card transactions. The proposed approach would allow customers to enable or disable transactions through issuer channels.
Cross-border payments are included as a priority area in the Vision document.
RBI said it will review the cross-border payments ecosystem and examine streamlining authorisations under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 and the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999. The objective is to reduce process friction and improve end-to-end cross-border transfers.
The regulator also said it is considering a shared responsibility framework for unauthorised digital payment transactions. Under this approach, liability would be jointly borne by the remitter’s bank and the beneficiary’s bank.
Payments Vision 2028 follows a series of RBI strategy documents issued since 2001, which have guided changes in India’s payment and settlement systems.
Key developments over this period include the launch of RTGS in 2004, the Payment and Settlement Systems Act in 2007, and the establishment of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in 2008.
The period also saw the expansion of NEFT and RTGS, efforts to promote a less-cash economy, and the rollout and scaling of UPI.
Recently, it was reported that RBI is working with the central banks of four to five countries to build cross-border transaction rails for central bank digital currency (CBDC) transactions.
