India's UPI 'incredibly painful' experience for ecosystem participants: Mastercard CFO

Mastercard chief financial officer (CFO) Sachin Mehra has said that the unified payments interface (UPI) is "fantastic at many levels" but remains an "incredibly painful experience" for ecosystem participants.

Speaking at the recent UBS conference, Mehra said that "it is an incredibly painful experience for ecosystem participants who all end up losing money as part of that proposition," reports TechCrunch.

This is not the first time Mastercard has expressed reservations about UPI.

"The banks which actually enable those payments tend to lose money on those transactions. So it's a proposition which we are asking the question is this long-term sustainable or not. And who knows? We'll see where it goes. But in the meantime, debit continues to flourish in that market, as does credit," Mehra said in May.

Meanwhile, after making history by reaching the 10-billion mark for the first time in August, UPI recorded 10.56 billion transactions in September.

In value terms as well, it was marginally up, increasing 0.3 per cent to Rs 15.8 trillion from Rs 15.76 trillion in August.

According to data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), this represented a 56 per cent rise in volume and a 41 per cent increase in value compared to September last year.

Digital payment methods are on the rise in India, with 42 per cent of consumers saying they will choose unified payments interface (UPI)-for online shopping this festive season, according to reports.