country, with special emphasis on rural and agricultural credit. and if we can do this in the next one year, it would be a major milestone in india ’ s growth story and journey towards india @ 2047. 18. another example of tech - enabled regulatory innovation by the rbi is the account aggregator ( aa ) framework. this is an important step towards realising the potential of empowering millions of underserved customers to digitally access and share their financial data across institutions in a secure and efficient manner. the framework has been expanded to include institutions regulated by sebi, irdai and pfrda. this is a progressive step to help customers gain control over their financial data and use it for accessing a variety of products including credit, insurance, investments for their own benefit. centralised kyc ( ckyc ) and video kyc are other enablers to facilitate seamless onboarding of customers in a digital and cost effective manner. we are giving greater focus on these initiatives. 19. the reserve bank is committed to take more such initiatives with the support of all stakeholders. in this endeavour and in collaboration with the stakeholders, three exciting new products are being launched later today. two of these pertain to enhancing the feature set of upi by facilitating small value transactions through ‘ upi lite ’ and linking credit cards to upi. the third initiative is the enablement of cross - border inward bill payments using bharat bill payment system ( bbps ). 20. the emergence of fintech players and the growing popularity of their innovative products have challenged the existing players in financial services in maintaining their market share, margins and customer base. the incumbent firms are responding to these challenges by adopting various strategies, which include making investments in fintech companies and partnering with them. they are also enhancing their in - house capabilities to adapt to the new realities. 21. a wave of changes brought in by fintech have had a positive impact in terms of enhancing inclusion and further penetration of financial services. at the same time, these developments have also ushered in an era where enormous amount of consumer data is being generated and leveraged upon by a few entities ( the so called bigtechs ) by virtue of their huge customer base. such developments raise concerns on concentration risk and potential spillovers as their level of engagement with the financial system strengthens in the years to come. therefore, potential risks to public policy objectives of maintaining competition, market and business conduct, operational resilience, data privacy, cyber security

in supporting the recovery. technology coupled with finance safeguarded the economies by ensuring seamless disbursal of loans, robust 24x7 payment systems, access to financial markets, insurance, msme credit, pension services and direct benefit transfers. 7. as per the world bank, at least 58 governments in developing countries have used digital payments to deliver covid - 19 relief 3. the scale of operations in india in this regard was of course much larger compared to other countries. the global findex database 2021 4 reported a significant increase in financial inclusion around the world. 2 pib press release 3 world bank report on the impact of covid - 19 on digital financial inclusion 4 https : / / www. worldbank. org / en / publication / globalfindex in developing countries, 71 per cent of people have bank accounts, up from 42 per cent a decade ago. approximately 40 per cent of people who made a digital payment from their account ( to a merchant or for a utility service ) did so for the very first time since the start of the pandemic. 8. in india, the pandemic accelerated the push towards digitalisation, especially in the rural areas. the period from march 2020 to august 2022 has seen a massive growth of 427 per cent in upi transactions, which reached a new high of 657 crore transactions in august 2022 5 alone. the number of upi qr code enabled payment acceptance points6 increased by about 9 crore ( 86 % yoy ) to reach 20 crore as at end of july 2022, reflecting the growing acceptance and preference for contactless payments. innovations in our financial sector 9. the financial services industry in india has seen enormous transformation. products like internet and mobile banking, electronic funds transfer, upi, aadhaar e - kyc, bharat bill payment system ( bbps ), qr scan & pay, digital pre - paid instruments and similar other initiatives have transformed the traditional banking operations. banking hours have been transcended. we now have digital - mobile - anywhereanytime banking. while several initiatives originated from the industry, the government and the regulators have created an enabling ecosystem to promote the fintech sector. initiatives like startup india, digital india, india stack, account aggregators, peer to peer ( p2p ) lending platforms and 24x7 digital payment systems have proved to be 5 npci website 6 reserve bank of india - payment system indicators ( july 2022 ) key enable