Reform express to move at an even faster pace, says PM Narendra Modi

India growing at 7.8% gives the world a new sense of confidence, he said

India’s “reform express will move forward at an even faster pace,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday, as he highlighted the country’s strong economic performance despite geopolitical and trade tensions and supply-chain pressures.

 

He also called for taking the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) global, while stressing the importance of cybersecurity and expanding fintech innovation into areas such as credit, insurance and pensions. He was speaking at the inauguration of the Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai.

 

India’s strong economic performance in the first quarter of 2026-27 has given the world a “new sense of confidence,” Modi said. He also pointed to Japan’s Credit Rating Agency upgrading India’s sovereign rating to “A-” from “BBB+,” calling it a testament to India’s growth momentum, macroeconomic stability and the structural reforms undertaken over the past several years.

 

 

India’s GDP growth at 7.8 per cent in Q1FY27 beat expectations by most forecasters, making it one of the fastest growing major economies.

 

China’s economy, meanwhile, expanded 4.3 per cent and Indonesia’s grew 5.3 per cent in the June quarter.

 

India’s GDP growth at 7.8 per cent in Q1FY27 beat expectations by most forecasters, making it one of the fastest growing major economies, with China expanding 4.3 per cent and Indonesia growing 5.3 per cent in the June quarter. India’s economy had grown 6.9 per cent in the year-ago period.

 

Forecasts by agencies for June quarter GDP growth had ranged between 6.9 per cent by India Ratings & Research (Ind-Ra) and 8 per cent by the State Bank of India (SBI). The Reserve Bank of India had estimated growth at 7 per cent for the same quarter.  

 

“…the quarter from April to June has been particularly challenging. And even in such circumstances, when India grows at 7.8 per cent, it gives the world a new sense of confidence,” Modi said.

 

He also highlighted the success story of the homegrown digital payments platform, UPI, in the decade since its launch. Quoting French President Emanuel Macron, Modi said that UPI is not just a technology story, but a civilisational story.

 

PM Modi, however, cautioned that India should not stop at UPI’s domestic success. With UPI now live in 11 countries, the next step should be to link it with the payment rails of other countries, he said. India has already linked UPI with Singapore’s payment system, facilitating cross-border transactions almost as easily as domestic payments, he said.

 

Modi said that similar linkages should be pursued with countries with a large concentration of Indians, significant trade activities or those seeking partnership with India. This could also help to cut the cost of remittances, the PM said. Indians, one of the largest remittance senders globally, lose some of that money to transaction costs, he noted.

 

Launched on August 25, 2016, UPI has transformed India’s digital payments landscape and emerged as the backbone of the country’s digital payments ecosystem. Over the past 10 years, UPI’s annual transaction volume has surged from 17.8 million transactions in FY17 to over 241.62 billion in FY26, an almost 13,000-fold increase, while transaction value has risen from ~7,000 crore to approximately ~314 trillion, more than 4,000 times higher.

 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had acknowledged UPI as the world’s largest real-time payment system by transaction volume, underscoring India’s leadership in building scalable and inclusive digital public infrastructure.

 

Modi used UPI’s success to make a broader point about India’s role in global financial infrastructure. For years, India adopted payment standards and rules created elsewhere, because it did not have an alternative of its own.

 

The success of UPI, however, should not mean that India’s fintech story remains centred on payments, Modi said. The next phase should see a greater share of fintech activity in credit, insurance, savings, investments and pensions, particularly for sections of society that remain underserved by traditional financial models.

 

“Now in the fintech market, along with payments, the share of credit transactions must also increase,” he said.

 

Outlining the next strategic phase for international digital payments, the Prime Minister emphasized the urgent need to integrate UPI with the domestic payment systems of partner countries, mirroring the seamless cross-border connectivity already established with Singapore. He directed stakeholders to actively link financial networks wherever large Indian populations reside or extensive trade occurs.

 

He pointed out that reducing transaction costs for the world's largest remittance-sending population is a critical priority. He explained that integrating digital payment systems globally would significantly accelerate the transfer of funds to families back home. “UPI can bring savings to Indians in this as well, and the money can reach Indian families faster,” Modi noted.

 

He also highlighted that agentic artificial intelligence (AI), tokenisation, etc., are opening new possibilities in finance, and asked fintechs to set four priorities for themselves: to make cybersecurity in India world-class; to develop its own ethical data-protection standards; to build a stronger fintech regulator-industry-innovation ecosystem; and to establish a Fintech Consumer Protection Index for companies to be transparently rated on consumer protection.

 

If the industry can hold itself to these standards, India’s fintech sector can become a “gateway to countless possibilities”, PM Modi said. “The success of our fintech story so far has been built on scale, scope, secure systems, democratisation through technology, and the trust of the people,” he said, adding that the next phase, he said, must build on those foundations while embracing next-generation innovation.

 

Urging a paradigm shift in financial infrastructure, the Prime Minister criticized historical reliance on foreign-designed card payment standards and called for the creation of indigenous rules and protocols. He expressed absolute confidence that the domestic industry possesses the capability to develop global standards. “Now we can make our own rules and standards and connect them with the world,” Modi asserted.