New Delhi [India], September 20 (ANI): Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday while addressing the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai said that India has led the way towards an inclusive financial world through digital payments.

She said the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) was taking the UPI platform internationally, helping countries to create their own payment systems and networks. It is also making the cross-border payments of currencies easier.

The finance minister said the inclusive financial programmes, such as KYC via Aadhaar of the government and the UPI platform, have helped revolutionise the network of the country.

Sitharaman also said that the country's advancement in the fintech technology has brought a cashless and paperless layer to the financial world.

"As of July 2022, there are 338 banks live on UPI platform. That month, in loan segment, the UPI platform registered 6.28-billion transactions, valuing a sum of Rs10.62 trillion," Sitharaman said, adding that the scale of this achievement is something worth highlighting.

"The account aggregator (UPI) will revolutionise the credit flow towards the medium and small industries and they need to have sustainable sources of finance. This account aggregator system went live on September 2021 and within just 12 months, 52 RBI-regulated entities including banks and NBFCs are on the account aggregator's platform," said the finance minister.

"The number of accounts enabled on the account aggregator network stands at 1.1 billion and the scale at which the account aggregator has grown in the last 12 months is that the wealth of opportunities there is for the global fintech people to see what more can be done creatively if more than 1.1 billion people have come on the platform," said Sitharaman at the event.

Apart from fintech, she also spoke about renewable energy, stressing that the country is moving fast on solar and wind energy sources. (ANI)