How did India move from hundis to UPI payments? Why do banks need clearing and settlement? And what makes UPI fundamentally different from RTGS, NEFT and IMPS?
In this episode of Banking Reframed, Srikumar Nair speaks with veteran banker Mr. A. P. Raja to trace the fascinating evolution of India’s payment systems—from medieval trade and indigenous banking arrangements to cheques, clearing houses, electronic fund transfers and the UPI revolution.
Mr. Raja began his banking career in the State Bank Group in 1979 and worked across branch banking, treasury, foreign exchange, SWIFT, MIS and banking technology. He worked as a project consultant on the Structured Financial Messaging System—SFMS, the secure messaging infrastructure used by RTGS and NEFT. He was also involved in the development of IFSC.
✅ How did hundis help traders avoid carrying money across long distances?
✅ Why are goldsmiths considered precursors to modern banks?
✅ What is settlement risk, and why does it worry central banks?
✅ What is the difference between gross settlement and net settlement?
✅ How did the Madhavpura–Ketan Parekh episode accelerate the push for RTGS?
✅ Why was IMPS introduced for instant retail payments?
✅ What is novation, and how does it reduce settlement risk in IMPS and UPI?
✅ Why did UPI achieve far greater adoption and impact than IMPS?
✅ Is IFSC still relevant in today’s payment environment?
The episode also explains why UPI is not merely another payment application. It is an interoperable payment ecosystem that allows banks, fintech companies and payment service providers to innovate while operating on a common, secure infrastructure.
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This discussion will be especially useful for:
• Bankers and BFSI professionals, including Fintech
• Students and job seekers
• Anyone interested in understanding how India’s digital payment ecosystem really works
#UPI #DigitalPayments #Banking #BankingReframed #BankingPodcast #bankinginsights
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Timestamps:
00:00 Episode highlights
02:37 India’s payment journey: From Hundi to UPI
03:30 Meet the guest: Mr. A. P. Raja
04:56 How hundis enabled safer long-distance trade
08:05 Bills of exchange, endorsements and allonge
10:14 How goldsmiths became early custodians of money
11:10 How cheques came into existence
14:04 Why clearing and settlement became necessary
15:07 How manual cheque clearing worked
18:28 Cheque truncation or image-based presentation?
19:26 Understanding settlement risk
20:18 How one bank failure can trigger a domino effect
23:57 Why India needed RTGS
24:16 The three defining features of RTGS
25:29 Gross settlement versus net settlement
29:15 The Ketan Parekh–Madhavpura Co-operative Bank episode and the push for RTGS
33:53 Moral hazard and the importance of maker-checker controls
34:50 Why RTGS has a minimum transaction value
36:24 How NEFT batch settlement works
37:30 Why NEFT could not meet the need for instant retail payments
38:28 How IMPS and UPI manage settlement risk
39:08 Novation and NPCI’s settlement guarantee mechanism
41:22 The innovations enabled by UPI
42:04 How third-party payment apps transformed the customer experience
44:23 Push and pull payments in UPI
44:53 How QR codes and soundboxes revolutionised payments
45:45 How UPI achieved mass adoption
47:29 Why IFSC was created
50:43 Is IFSC still relevant today?
51:49 How UPI simplifies bank-to-bank payments
53:38 IMPS as the foundation and UPI as the complete ecosystem
54:42 UPI interoperability versus closed payment apps
55:21 Can UPI remain free and financially sustainable?
57:00 Key takeaways