Releasing the task force’s report on Monday, India’s G20 sherpa Amitabh Kant said the country’s fast-growing DPI has enabled it to achieve in nine years what would have taken it 50 years to realise without the DPI.
India’s push for interoperable DPI during its G20 presidency last year had faced resistance from developed countries, who feared it could undermine the growth of global private payments entities. The plug-and-play method mooted by the task force appears to be aimed at addressing this fear.
Kant and Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani were co-chairs of the task force, set up in January 2023, to “oversee and facilitate achieving India’s G20 presidency agenda and priorities on DPI and financial inclusion“.
In the report’s preface, Kant and Nilekani dwelt on India’s DPI progress. The country has so far achieved 1.4 billion Aadhaar enrolments, facilitated more than 10 million daily e-KYC transactions, granted access to bank accounts to about 500 million individuals and effected direct benefit transfers across various schemes that helped the government save around $41 billion by plugging leakages.
Body to harness DPIThe task force highlighted the need to identify an existing body to foster and harness the DPI ecosystem across various regions and countries, especially the global south, comprising mainly developing nations.”The body may be of global standard with the scope of multinational presence. It should be able to work on policy dimensions, formulation and implementation of strategies with appropriate technical and academic expertise,” the report said.
The body should promote knowledge sharing on DPI and also guide nations through effective deployment of their resources, according to the report. “It shall also be capable of working across various sectors and eventually, be able to take the responsibility of developing and setting appropriate standards in various technical domains of DPI,” it said.
Phased approach
The task force recommended “a comprehensive and phased approach” to maximise the effectiveness of the DPI outreach efforts. “Identification of the countries with interest and need in adopting the DPI, outlining a customized sovereign DPI design and architecture, arranging for funds and engaging systems integrators are necessary steps to address any country specific DPI requirements,” it said.