Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 8 : Gautam Aggarwal, Division President, South Asia, and Country Corporate Officer, India, on Wednesday said that in a rapidly evolving payments landscape, UPI, cards, and even cash will continue to coexist, each serving different consumer needs.
"The way I look at UPI and Mastercard sort of coexisting, card rails and payment rails outside of cards have a role to play. They all have a different role to play. Cash can continue to remain in the system. UPI will continue to remain in the system. Cards will remain in the system. They will all coexist. The users will find which is the payment rail that is most convenient to them," Aggarwal told ANI on the sidelines of Global Fintech Fest (GFF)2025 in Mumbai.
"We've been in this country for 40 years... India is a very important market for us. We have roughly 10,000 people in this country. We're doing a lot of development in India for the world," he added.
On the investment front, Aggarwal pointed to Mastercard's early role in supporting fintech success stories.
"We were one of the early investors in Razorpay almost 10, 11 years ago. Then we did a stake in Pine Labs maybe three, four years ago. There were a few others, Mu Sigma and others along the way... We've probably invested in about 10-11 companies in India alone."
He noted that these investments were made both directly and through the Mastercard Start Path Program, and are "selective in minority investments" that align with the company's broader business goals.
Regarding GFF, Aggarwal remarked that it has evolved from "an emerging platform that was showing the role of India to the entire world" to one that now allows smaller fintechs to "show to the world how it is done."
PhonePe Payment Gateway (PhonePe PG) has announced a strategic collaboration with Mastercard, a global technology company in the payments industry, to launch its Device Tokenization solution.
Announced at the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2025, the initiative brings Mastercard's network tokenisation capability to PhonePe PG's merchant platform, expanding secure payment options for online businesses.