RBI Payments Vision 2028

The RBI Payments Vision 2028 is the Reserve Bank of India's comprehensive strategic framework for the development, regulation, and evolution of India's payments and settlement systems for the period 2025 to 2028. It succeeds the Payments Vision 2025 document (released in 2022) and builds on India's extraordinary payments transformation over the preceding decade — driven primarily by the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which processed over 17,000 crore transactions worth ₹240 lakh crore in 2024–25. The Vision 2028 document is organised around four pillars: Integrity, Inclusivity, Interoperability, and Innovation — each with specific measurable targets. Among its flagship proposals, Payments Vision 2028 introduces the concept of a 'Payments Union' — a unified regulatory and technical architecture that would bring together UPI, IMPS (Immediate Payment Service), RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement), NEFT, NETC (National Electronic Toll Collection), and digital rupee (e₹) under a single interoperable framework. This would allow seamless movement of money across payment rails, much like a national transport interchange. The Vision also prioritises UPI portability — the ability to link a UPI handle to any bank account without changing the handle (@okicici, @oksbi etc.), analogous to mobile number portability — reducing switching costs and increasing banking competition. The Account Aggregator (AA) framework, launched in 2021 and embedded in Vision 2028, allows consented sharing of financial data across institutions — enabling a customer's transaction history from one bank to be shared with a lender for instant credit assessment. Vision 2028 targets significant expansion of AA to include insurance, tax, and pension data. The Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) — India's digital rupee (e₹) — is a key plank: the RBI aims to scale CBDC for both retail (e₹-R, for general public) and wholesale (e₹-W, for inter-bank settlement) use, with programmable features such as purpose-specific spending (e.g., subsidies that can only be spent on food or fuel). The document also addresses cybersecurity resilience, fraud prevention through the Centralised Payments Fraud Information Registry (CPFIR), and cross-border payment interoperability through bilateral and multilateral linkages of UPI with foreign payment systems.

• 1 RBI Payments Vision 2028: 5-year strategic roadmap (2025–2028); succeeds Payments Vision 2025; four pillars — Integrity, Inclusivity, Interoperability, Innovation
• 2 Payments Union concept: Unified architecture integrating UPI, IMPS, RTGS, NEFT, NETC, and e₹ (digital rupee) — single interoperable payments ecosystem across all rails
• 3 UPI Portability: Ability to retain UPI handle (@bank) while switching underlying bank account — reduces friction, promotes banking competition; analogous to mobile number portability
• 4 Account Aggregator (AA) expansion: Currently covers banking data (under RBI); Vision 2028 targets integration of insurance (IRDAI), pension (PFRDA), tax (CBDT), and securities (SEBI) data — true financial data interoperability
• 5 CBDC — Digital Rupee (e₹): Retail (e₹-R) for public use; Wholesale (e₹-W) for interbank settlement; programmable features — purpose-locked subsidies, time-bound spending; Vision 2028 targets mainstream adoption
• 6 Cross-border UPI: Bilateral UPI linkages active with Singapore (PayNow), UAE (Al Ansari Exchange), France, Bahrain, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka — Vision 2028 targets further multilateralisation via BIS Nexus and G20 payment interoperability framework
• 7 Fraud prevention: Centralised Payments Fraud Information Registry (CPFIR) — shared database of mule accounts, fraudulent devices; AI-based real-time fraud scoring mandated for large payment operators
• 8 Financial inclusion targets: Expand UPI-Lite (offline, low-value payments for areas with poor connectivity); BBPS (Bharat Bill Payment System) to cover all recurring payments including mutual fund SIPs, loan EMIs
• 9 Regulatory sandboxes: Expanded use of RBI regulatory sandbox for testing new payment products — CBDC programmability, tokenised bank deposits, stablecoin frameworks
• 10 Banking portability: Vision 2028 explores concept of full banking account portability — customer keeps account number when switching banks — analogous to UPI portability but at a deeper infrastructure level

Under the RBI Payments Vision 2028 Account Aggregator expansion, a migrant worker in Pune who has salary credits in his Jan Dhan account but no formal credit history could share 24 months of UPI transaction data, EPFO contribution records, and GST filings via a consented AA request to a fintech lender — who then offers a collateral-free personal loan within minutes. This is the practical promise of the AA framework at scale: converting India's vast informal transaction data into formal credit access — bridging the credit gap for 300 million underserved Indians.