Viyona Fintech: Four NPCI Certifications Secured
Why in the news
A Telangana fintech start-up cleared NPCI’s technical checks on four payment integrations, moving it towards being a full payment orchestration platform.
Key facts
- Company: Viyona Fintech India Private Limited, headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana; set up in 2022 by Ravindranath Yarlagadda.
- Certifier: NPCI, in May 2026.
- Focus: closing gaps in digital banking and payment access across semi-urban and rural India.
- Capabilities unlocked: accepting merchants, QR acquiring, issuing to customers, instant transfers, interoperable banking, embedded finance, onboarding online, merchant settlement and rural banking services.
The four certifications
| Certification | Meaning |
|---|---|
| UPI Issuer | Bank or PSP that gives customers UPI handles and manages their UPI accounts (customer side) |
| UPI Acquirer | Bank or PSP that lets merchants take UPI payments (merchant side) |
| IMPS | Immediate Payment Service: 24×7 real-time interbank transfers by NPCI; typically up to ₹5 lakh |
| IBMB | Interoperable Mobile Banking: basic banking over mobile, even on basic feature phones in some setups |
- Holding both UPI certifications lets Viyona work on both sides of a UPI transaction.
- NPCI certification confirms that systems meet NPCI standards for security, scalability, interoperability and reliability.
- Payment orchestration: a technology layer to route and manage payments across methods, channels and providers, improving success rates.
Significance
- Shows the open nature of India’s DPI: anyone meeting standards can build on the rails NPCI provides.
- Rural focus matters because urban payment penetration is nearing saturation; small merchants, cooperative banks, small finance banks and RRBs need digital partners.
- Viyona’s planned rural work covers POS in rural towns, local-language and feature-phone support, onboarding of kirana stores and routing for semi-banked customers.
Background
- NPCI: umbrella body for retail payments, founded 2008 by RBI and the Indian Banks’ Association; a Section 8 not-for-profit company.
- NPCI products: UPI, IMPS, RuPay, AePS, BBPS, NACH, NETC FASTag, IBMB, Bharat QR and NBBL.
- UPI: launched April 2016; one app can link many bank accounts, uses a virtual payment address, supports push and pull payments, and is the largest real-time payment system by volume.
- UPI vs IMPS: UPI arrived in 2016 and uses a UPI PIN with a VPA; IMPS dates from 2010-14 and uses account number with IFSC or mobile with MMID; IMPS limit is ₹5 lakh against a typical ₹1 lakh for UPI.
- Bharat QR: interoperable QR standard developed by NPCI, Visa, Mastercard and AmEx.
- AePS: Aadhaar-authenticated basic banking such as cash withdrawal and balance enquiry through micro-ATM business correspondents.
- BBPS: interoperable utility bill payments.
- RuPay: domestic card scheme launched by NPCI in 2012.
- DPI stack: Aadhaar (identity), UPI/IMPS/AePS (payments), Account Aggregator (data), ULI (credit), Bhashini (language), ONDC (commerce).
Exam angle
- Certifying body: NPCI; start-up base: Hyderabad.
- Issuer means customer side; acquirer means merchant side.
- NPCI provides rails and does not itself issue cards or run ATMs.
- FASTag falls under National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC), not fund transfers.