RBI Showcases India’s Digital Public Platforms as Model for Inclusive Growth at World Bank–IMF Meet
SDG 9: Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure | SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Institutions: Reserve Bank of India | Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology
At the World Bank–IMF Annual Meetings in Washington D.C., the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) convened a High-Level Dialogue on “Forging Economic Resilience through Digital Public Platforms (DPPs)”, drawing representatives from 38 central banks, including 22 governors. In his opening remarks, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra showcased India’s digital public infrastructure as a global model for inclusive, secure, and scalable economic growth.
Governor Malhotra traced India’s framework, Aadhaar (digital identity), UPI (real-time payments), and DEPA (data-sharing architecture), as the foundational building blocks of a DPP ecosystem built as a public good. He noted that over 1.3 billion Aadhaar users and 566 million bank accounts (including 316 million women’s) now anchor financial inclusion, enabling USD 500 billion in direct benefit transfers with reduced leakages.
He highlighted UPI’s transformative scale, handling 20 billion transactions monthly worth USD 280 billion, accounting for 85 percent of India’s digital payments. RBI research links a 1 percent rise in UPI transactions to 0.03 percent GDP growth and a measurable fall in cash demand.
India’s DPP model, he stressed, demonstrates how public-sector infrastructure and private-sector innovation can jointly drive resilience. Internationally, India supports adoption through MOSIP, the open-source digital-ID platform now being explored by 27 countries, and cross-border UPI linkages (e.g., with Singapore PayNow) to advance low-cost remittances and digital trade.
RBI’s intervention reframes digital public platforms as macroeconomic instruments, central to financial stability, inclusion, and resilience. The Indian model offers a replicable template for countries designing sovereign, interoperable digital rails under the G20 framework on Digital Public Infrastructure.
Relevant Question for Policy Stakeholders:
What institutional frameworks are needed to govern global cooperation on digital public platforms while preserving national data standards and regulatory autonomy?
Follow the full release here: RBI Press Release 1322 – High-Level Dialogue on Forging Economic Resilience through Digital Public Platforms
RBI Speech – Governor Sanjay Malhotra (Oct 14 2025)