UPI enables expansion of credit among underserved borrowers: Study

BENGALURU: Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has enabled underserved borrowers to access formal credit for the first time as loans to new-to-credit borrowers in regions with high UPI adoption have increased by 4% and to subprime borrowers by 8%, according to a study.

Titled Open Banking and Digital Payments: Implications for Credit Access, the study points out that the UPI, since its launch in 2016, has enabled 300 million individuals and 50 million merchants to perform seamless digital transactions. It points out that the average size of a fintech loan was R 27,778, which is about seven times the rural monthly expenditure.