India Planning To Expand Its DPI To 50 Countries In Next 5 Years, Says Nilekani

Nandan Nilekani, the non-executive chairman of Infosys, mentioned that India plans to expand its digital public infrastructure to 50 nations over the next five years, currently operational in 15 countries. This was shared in response to Werner Vogels, the Chief Technology Officer of Amazon, in Bengaluru on Friday.

The conversation took place at an event hosted by Zwende, an ecommerce platform for artisans, where Vogels serves as an investor and advisor.

Nilekani provided a brief overview of India’s digital public infrastructure, focusing on its identity and payment systems. He discussed his journey from 2009, starting as the founding chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to the Aadhaar-enabled Know Your Customer (KYC) process and the establishment of Jan Dhan bank accounts.

“Today we are 1.3 billion people who have the ID and most of India has been covered, and they’re using it 80 billion times a day online real time authentication in sub second response time. We had all the pieces to participate in an economy: identity, bank account and mobile connectivity,” he highlighted.

When asked about the necessity of government support for the success of such digital public infrastructure, Nilekani acknowledged that while some aspects might require regulatory intervention. He pointed out that the government’s backing was crucial for the Aadhaar program, which cost approximately $1 per person to provide an ID to 1.3 billion individuals.

However, he noted that the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a non-profit entity owned by banks, was developed independently and gained significant value for the government due to the push from demonetization and the need for digital payments during the Covid-19 pandemic. He stressed the importance of the government setting clear rules for the system’s operation.

Nilekani also serves as an advisor to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on innovation and public policy. He recalled the launch of UPI in 2016, which has since grown to handle 14.4 billion transactions monthly, with 500 million users and 50 million merchants accepting payments. He explained the philosophy behind UPI, which is to provide public infrastructure for private innovation.

“We estimate that on this infrastructure, there are more than $100 billion worth of companies that have been created on top of this, leveraging this technology,” he said.

Additionally, he highlighted the development of an account aggregator system that allows individuals to utilize their own data for accessing credit.