In a decade, India built the world’s largest population-scale real-time payments system. It changed not just banking, but behaviour itself
The most common sound in Indian commerce today is no longer the rustle of cash or the swipe of a card. It is the soft ping of a phone confirming payment.
It plays out everywhere: at roadside tea stalls, temple donation counters, toll plazas, vegetable markets, pharmacies, food delivery drop-offs and luxury malls. A country once defined by cash queues now settles billions of payments instantly and at almost no cost.