NPCI Sets Up a Technology Subsidiary for AI, Blockchain and Global Capability Centres
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the body that runs UPI and RuPay, has set up a new wholly owned subsidiary called NPCI Tech Solutions Limited (NTSL). A wholly owned subsidiary is a company fully owned by a parent company.
NTSL will work on artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and digital financial infrastructure, which means the basic digital systems that let money move safely.
It also aims to tap opportunities linked to Global Capability Centres (GCCs), the in-house technology centres that global companies set up in India.
Vishal Kanvaty, who was NPCI's Chief Technology Officer and led its AI-based fraud-detection and distributed ledger work, has been appointed MD and CEO of NTSL.
NTSL will act as the technology and innovation arm of the NPCI group, beyond NPCI's core payments work.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI): The Organisation Behind UPI and RuPay
NPCI is the not-for-profit organisation that builds and runs most of India's retail digital payment systems, including UPI, RuPay cards, IMPS, FASTag and the National Financial Switch for ATMs. It does not hold anyone's money; it runs the "roads" on which money moves between banks. It was set up in 2008 as an initiative of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks' Association, under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. It is registered as a Section 8 (not-for-profit) company and is owned by banks.
By creating NTSL, NPCI is separating its research and technology-service work from its core job of running payment rails. This lets it build AI fraud tools and blockchain systems, and sell technology services, without mixing them with the regulated payment business.
Global Capability Centres (GCCs)
A Global Capability Centre (GCC) is an office that a foreign company sets up in another country and runs itself, to do work for its own global business. For example, a big American bank may open a centre in Bengaluru where Indian engineers build its software, check its accounts or analyse its data. The centre is fully owned by the parent company. It does not serve outside customers. India hosts more GCCs than any other country.
NPCI's new subsidiary NTSL plans to tap GCC opportunities. This means it could offer payment technology, AI and digital infrastructure services to the many global companies that run capability centres in India, or build such capabilities itself. It shows how India's public digital infrastructure bodies are looking to earn from the country's growing technology services market.
- New subsidiary: NPCI Tech Solutions Limited (NTSL), wholly owned by NPCI
- NTSL focus: AI, blockchain, digital financial infrastructure, GCC opportunities
- NTSL MD and CEO: Vishal Kanvaty (earlier NPCI's Chief Technology Officer)
- NPCI's other subsidiaries: NPCI International Payments Ltd (2020), NPCI Bharat BillPay Ltd (operational April 2021), NPCI BHIM Services Ltd
- NPCI set up: 2008, by RBI and Indian Banks' Association, under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007
- India's GCCs (FY2026): about 2,117, employing about 2.36 million people