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The 7th Global Fintech Fest is being held in Mumbai from 8 to 11 September 2026 and was inaugurated by the Prime Minister on 8 September.
Its theme is 'Potential to Impact: Agentic AI | Tokenisation | Quantum — Trusted, Connected, Global Systems for Inclusive Finance'.
The principal organisers are the Payments Council of India, the National Payments Corporation of India and the Fintech Convergence Council, with support from MeitY, the Department of Financial Services, the MEA's NEST Division, NITI Aayog, RBI, SEBI, IFSCA and PFRDA.
UPI processed 2,365.8 crore transactions worth ₹29.88 lakh crore in July 2026 and 24,509 million transactions in August 2026; it handles nearly half of global real-time digital transaction volume and is live in 11 countries.
The Prime Minister set a four-point agenda for the sector: top-grade cybersecurity, ethical data protection standards, a regulator-industry innovation ecosystem, and a fintech consumer protection index.
Shared, interoperable digital building blocks — identity, payments and consented data exchange — that the state or a public body provides as open rails, on which banks, start-ups and government departments each build their own services rather than each building the rails again.
Simple Analogy: Roads: the state lays them once, and everyone's vehicles use them.
Instant interoperable retail payments; built and operated by NPCI and launched in 2016. It marked its tenth anniversary on 25 August 2026.
Key: Recognised by the IMF as the world's largest real-time payment system; 2,365.8 crore transactions worth ₹29.88 lakh crore in July 2026 alone, 741 banks live, and operations in 11 countries with cross-border linkage already established with Singapore.
Jan Dhan bank accounts, Aadhaar digital identity and mobile connectivity together form the base layer of digital financial inclusion.
Key: 59.15 crore Jan Dhan accounts as on 26 August 2026 and Aadhaar enrolment past 144 crore by March 2026 supply the account and identity layers that fintech products sit on.
Consent-based sharing of a customer's financial data between institutions, enabling credit assessment without physical documents.
Key: Created by the RBI's Master Direction on NBFC–Account Aggregator dated 2 September 2016; an NBFC-AA is licensed only to move data with explicit user consent and cannot use or store it for its own purposes. The network went into commercial operation in September 2021.
An open, interoperable network for e-commerce, extending India's DPI approach beyond payments.
Key: A Section 8 not-for-profit company incorporated on 31 December 2021 under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade. By June 2026 it had reached over 20 crore buyers and 5 lakh sellers across more than 1,000 cities, with a Financial Services category of its own.
RBI's sovereign digital currency, a direct liability of the central bank unlike balances held in a payment app.
Key: The wholesale pilot began in November 2022 for settlement of secondary-market government securities transactions, and the retail pilot in December 2022 with nine banks in four cities.
Micro-credit for street vendors, launched on 1 June 2020 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs; cited at GFF as fintech-enabled formal credit reaching the informal economy.
Key: Collateral-free working capital loans of ₹10,000, rising to ₹20,000 and ₹50,000 on repayment, with a 7% interest subsidy; average vendor income rose over 20% and the scheme has been extended to 2030.
Umbrella organisation for retail payments; builds and operates UPI, RuPay, IMPS, NACH, FASTag and the Bharat Bill Payment System, and has deployed AI/ML-based fraud monitoring for UPI.
Regulator of payment systems and issuer of the Digital Rupee; runs the Regulatory Sandbox, the SRO framework for fintech and the Financial Inclusion Index.
Unified regulator for financial services in India's International Financial Services Centre; one of the supporting institutions of GFF 2026.
The statute under which the RBI regulates payment systems and under whose provisions NPCI was set up.
Allows innovative financial products to be live-tested in a controlled environment, with or without regulatory relaxations.
Sets industry-led standards for ethical conduct, market integrity and dispute resolution.
Mandates minimum security standards across internet and mobile banking channels.
Notified by MeitY to govern the processing of personal data, including financial data held by fintech firms.
General Awareness > Banking and Financial Awareness > Payment Systems
GS Paper 3 > Indian Economy > Inclusive Growth and Digital Public Infrastructure
General Awareness > Economy and Current Affairs
Which of the following is a most likely consequence of implementing the 'Unified Payments Interface (UPI)'?
Answer: Mobile wallets will not be necessary for online payments.
Consider the following statements: 1. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) helps in promoting the financial inclusion in the country. 2. NPCI has launched RuPay, a card payment scheme. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer: Both 1 and 2
Consider the following statements in respect of the digital rupee: 1. It is a sovereign currency issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)... 2. It appears as a liability on the RBI's balance sheet. 3. It is insured against inflation by its very design. 4. It is freely convertible against commercial bank money and cash. Which of the statements given above are correct?
Answer: 1, 2 and 4
Consider the following statements about G-20: 1. The G-20 group was originally established as a platform for the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to discuss the international economic and financial issues. 2. Digital public infrastructure is one of India's G-20 priorities. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer: Both 1 and 2
Converting an asset or a card credential into a programmable digital unit, enabling fractional ownership, instant settlement and safer storage of payment data.
AI systems that sense, decide and act across an end-to-end financial workflow within governance guardrails, rather than only answering queries.
A licensed non-banking financial company whose only permitted business is moving a customer's financial data between institutions with that customer's explicit consent.
An RBI framework from August 2019 permitting live testing of new financial products in a controlled environment.