Reliance Joins The Race To Build UPI Rival, Partners With Google And Facebook To Apply For NUE License: Report

Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has partnered with technology behemoths Google and Facebook to seek license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for setting up a New Umbrella Entity (NUE), reports Economic Times.

Google and Facebook will hold a small stake in the proposed NUE which will be jointly promoted by a RIL unit and Infibeam Avenues Limited's subsidiary 'So Hum Bharat'. Also, payments industry veteran Navin Surya, who had founded Itzcash, is said to have been appointed as the managing director and chief executive of the entity.

Setting up the NUE will enable the Reliance-led consortium to create a national payments network to rival the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which presently dominates the digital payments ecosystem in the nation.

The companies are presently in the advanced stages of submitting their proposal to the RBI, the deadline for which has been extended to 31 March.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that consortiums led by ICICI Bank and Amazon, as well as Paytm with IndusInd Bank have also applied for NUE licences. Another consortium led by Tata Group along with HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank is also said to be vying for the NUE license.