CARD91 has launched a production-ready UPI Issuance and Acquiring platform designed to help banks, fintechs and payment providers deploy UPI payment services more quickly. The API-first infrastructure simplifies integration, compliance and settlement processes, enabling regulated financial institutions to reduce deployment times and focus on building new payment products.
Financial technology infrastructure provider CARD91 has announced the commercial launch of its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) Issuance and Acquiring platform. Transitioning to a production-ready environment, the API-first software layer acts as a plug-and-play digital backbone for banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), payment service providers (PSPs), prepaid payment instrument (PPI) issuers, and enterprise platforms. The infrastructure is engineered to abstract the technical complexities of UPI switching, settlement reconciliation, and regulatory compliance, allowing regulated entities to launch localised payment instruments at scale.
India’s UPI ecosystem is currently processing high-volume transaction traffic, operating at a pace of over 8.2 billion transactions annually with a 48% year-over-year expansion rate. Despite this massive retail traction, smaller regional banks and emerging fintech startups frequently encounter severe integration bottlenecks due to heavy infrastructure overhead and the strict operational mandates set by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). CARD91’s modular architecture resolves these implementation pain points by delivering complete, end-to-end coverage across both sides of the transactional lifecycle:
- On the Issuance Side: The platform provides native support for high-throughput transaction processing, direct funding account linkages (such as Current Account Savings Accounts, or CASA), core banking ledger synchronisations, and full tokenised instrument lifecycle management. Notably, the framework extends beyond standard account linkages to natively support modern UPI-over-credit and UPI-over-PPI architectures.
- On the Acquiring Side: The system embeds artificial intelligence capabilities to automate merchant onboarding. This includes instant Merchant Category Code (MCC) verification to mitigate compliance risks, dynamic Virtual Payment Address (VPA) creation, multi-store staff permissioning, localised collection monitoring, automated cross-bank settlements, and instant refund processing.
Ajay Pandey, CEO and Founder of CARD91, stated that the live rollout provides every regulated entity with a trusted, compliant infrastructure stack that cuts down go-to-market timelines from months to days. Pandey noted that by removing backend engineering barriers, financial platforms can pivot their capital away from maintaining heavy legacy switches and focus entirely on creating localised consumer payment features. The launch deepens CARD91’s existing Issuance Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) footprint, where it already operates certified card-management networks alongside major global processing systems like RuPay, Visa, and Mastercard, further cementing its position as a primary transaction orchestration node within the Indian digital finance sector.
What this means for the industry
- Faster UPI deployment: Banks, NBFCs, fintechs and payment providers can launch UPI services without building complex infrastructure from scratch.
- Simplified compliance: The platform manages switching, settlement reconciliation and regulatory requirements, reducing operational complexity.
- Supports modern payment products: Native support for UPI over credit and UPI over prepaid instruments enables institutions to introduce new digital payment offerings.
- AI-powered merchant onboarding: Automated merchant verification, VPA creation, settlement management and refund processing improve efficiency for acquiring businesses.
- Strengthens India’s payments infrastructure: As UPI transaction volumes continue to grow rapidly, infrastructure providers such as CARD91 are helping smaller financial institutions participate in the country’s expanding real-time payments ecosystem.
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