We're expanding into embedded finance, B2B bill payments space: NPST CEO

NPST, a payment technology provider enabling real-time payments, is expanding into embedded finance, B2B bill payments, and AI-powered fraud intelligence, targeting a $50 billion market. While facilitating over 6% of India’s UPI transaction volume (currently at 16 billion monthly transactions), Co-founder and CEO Deepak Chand Thakur sees significant growth potential in this space.

Founded in 2013 in Thane, Maharashtra, the fintech firm, listed on the NSE Small and Medium Exchange offers UPI payments and digital banking services, operates as both a technology service provider (TSP) and a payment platform as a service provider (PPaaS), catering to over 100 financial institutions and processing over 30 million daily transactions.

Speaking about the company’s recent initiatives, Thakur told TechCircle that its NPST 2.0 initiative launched last year marks the company's transition to a mid-sized, innovation-focused entity. It is further targeting fast-growing verticals like NBFCs by providing scalable infrastructure for UPI payment orchestration, Super Apps, and risk intelligence. “We are also growing our team by 50%, transitioning to the mainboard exchange, and strengthening its brand while maintaining its agile, innovative culture,” he said.

Thakur noted that while UPI has led to merchant payments outpacing P2P transfers, merchant acquiring remains challenging due to zero-merchant discount rate (MDR) economics and high operational costs. Merchants require value-added solutions, pushing acquirers towards full-service offerings, a space, he believes, NPST is disrupting.

From that perspective, NPST’s PPaaS offers a zero-Capex, SaaS-based model allowing acquirers to scale without heavy infrastructure investments. Thakur informed that PPaaS also offers value-added services beyond payments, including merchant onboarding, compliance, risk monitoring, and advanced analytics, enabling acquirers to become full-service financial partners.

Stating the current challenges in the financial ecosystem, Thakur said that India's digital revolution, built on the India Stack, provides a foundation for financial inclusion. While UPI reaches millions, many rural consumers remain underserved. “The real success lies in leveraging digital financial services to drive long-term financial health and economic empowerment,” he said.

“A key challenge is the lack of scalable, multi-product financial models serving underserved populations. Traditional banking models struggle with the costs of serving low-income customers,” noted Thakur, adding that NPST addresses these challenges with digital-first, cloud-powered, and AI-driven solutions that remove barriers to financial access. Our cloud-native infrastructure enables efficient scaling via a “pay-as-you-grow” model.

“AI transforms financial inclusion by assessing the bankability of new customers, enabling responsible credit access. We are also using AI to strengthen fraud detection, risk management, and regulatory compliance,” added Thakur.

According to him, ubiquitous infrastructure availability also remains crucial. “We leverage low-cost, interoperable solutions like QR codes to bridge the rural-urban divide, reducing reliance on scarce ATM infrastructure. We also digitise payment acceptance in rural areas with mobile-first acquiring solutions that turn smartphones into payment terminals,” he said.

NPST is moving towards intelligent and embedded payments integrated into everyday experiences, accelerated by 5G, cloud computing, big data, and AI. These advancements are reshaping banks and fintechs, enabling innovative, data-driven solutions, particularly in predictive fraud prevention, personalized banking, and embedded payments, believes Thakur.

Qynx, NPST's QR payment and SoundBox solution, enables micro-merchants to accept digital payments with minimal investment and supports multiple acquirers with payment switch capabilities, merchant management, and device operations. Thakur gave the recent example of NPST partnering with the Central Bank of India (on Wednesday) to deploy Qynx nationwide.

The deployment involves QR-integrated SoundBox devices powered by NPST's Qynx Merchant Switch, enabling real-time transaction processing, automated reconciliation, payment reporting, and centralized management.

Thakur also sees a vast India's credit gap, which needs to be addressed and therefore NPST in August launched PayJoy, an API-based credit enabling solution that integrates with banks' UPI apps to offer credit to a broader customer base, including those without traditional credit access.

The company is fostering payment innovation through collaboration with banks, fintechs, and technology providers. In February, NPST joined forces with Hyperface, Credit Cards as a Service (CCaaS) platform, to enable banks and credit issuers to offer embedded credit solutions via UPI. “This collaboration aims to expand instant credit access by integrating UPI-based credit offerings,” Thakur said.

NPST is also enhancing its RegTech suite through fraud risk management partnerships, enabling banks and fintechs to strengthen payment security and ensure compliance.