NPCI Unveils Plan for UPI-Powered Credit Revolution with Unified Lending Interface

At CNBC-TV18’s Global Leadership Summit 2025, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) Managing Director and CEO Dilip Asbe revealed ambitious plans to transform India's retail lending landscape, mirroring the success of UPI in payments. The initiative, dubbed a 'credit revolution', will be powered by UPI data and a new platform called the Unified Lending Interface (ULI).

ULI is designed to leverage real-time UPI transaction data to streamline credit scoring, loan decisioning, and collections, aiming for near-zero costs. Early pilot programs are already enabling direct integration of credit cards and pre-approved credit lines with UPI, facilitating seamless borrowing through familiar interfaces. Asbe stated that this integration makes the borrowing process fast, short, and deeply connected, allowing for instant step-up decisions when consumers are in real-time contact.

This move capitalizes on UPI's massive scale, which in October 2025 saw ₹27.28 lakh crore in transaction value and 20.7 billion transactions, representing significant year-on-year and month-on-month growth. NPCI believes this combined with RBI's credit enablement policies can extend formal credit access to millions of first-time borrowers, particularly in tier-3 markets and smaller towns.

**Impact** This initiative has the potential to significantly increase financial inclusion by making credit more accessible, faster, and cheaper. It could lead to increased lending volumes for banks and fintechs, drive digital adoption in credit, and create new opportunities in embedded finance, potentially boosting economic activity. Rating: 8/10.

**Difficult Terms** * **UPI (Unified Payments Interface)**: A real-time payment system developed by NPCI that enables instant money transfer between bank accounts using mobile applications. * **Unified Lending Interface (ULI)**: A proposed platform by NPCI intended to simplify and accelerate the process of retail lending. * **Credit Scoring**: The process of evaluating an individual's creditworthiness based on their financial history to determine the risk associated with lending to them. * **Decisioning**: In the context of lending, this refers to the automated or manual process of deciding whether to approve or reject a loan application based on established criteria. * **Collections**: The process of recovering outstanding payments or debts from borrowers who have failed to meet their payment obligations. * **Embedded Finance**: The integration of financial services, such as lending or payments, directly into non-financial products, platforms, or applications, making them available seamlessly at the point of need.