IT for Change is part of a coalition of NGOs and labor unions that has called on the Reserve Back of India (RBI) to not proceed with licensing corporations to run parallel financial infrastructures like Universal Payment Interface (UPI) on a for-profit basis. This coalition includes the workers' union of the State Bank of India, the largest bank in India, and UNI Global, the global service workers' union.
When a quasi-public system is running well and providing all needed services, there is no reason to create parallel for-profit systems, consisting of large corporations. It is even more dangerous to give such licenses to Big Retail and e-commerce entities like Amazon, Flipkart-Walmart and Jio-Reliance, who are themselves one of the biggest users of payment systems. The vertical integration of a digital payment ecosystem with their commerce ecosystem will lead to the creation of highly dangerous monopolies.
As a representative case, the joint letter submitted to the RBI goes into details of how Amazon has been subverting law and public interest in India as well as globally, and why, thus, its application for an NUE license should be denied.
Download the press release for the campaign here.