Digital payments in India could be worth $1 trillion annually with four out of five transactions made on connected devices by 2025, a new report forecast.

In a whitepaper ACI Worldwide, a provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutons, and India-based payments solutions company AGS Transact Technology predicted the country is set for a leading position in global payments, driven by “mass adoption of e-payments, a thriving fintech scene” and favourable “regulatory policy”.

Major factors driving uptake include a likely doubling of India’s smartphone user base to 500 million by 2020, with increasingly affordable devices and data spurring “safe, fraud-resistant digital transactions based on biometrics, multi-factor authorisation, as well as an explosion of consumer services via mobile internet”.

In addition, initiatives such as UPI (Unified Payments Interface) will drive greater interoperability between banks, independent of the acquirer, payment provider or mobile apps, as well as a boom in connected devices in India and globally.

The report predicted that by 2020 the user base for digital transactions will more than triple to 300 million, up from 90 million today, “as use cases for digital transactions grow and new users from rural and semi-urban areas enter the markets.

“India is undergoing an incredible transformation driven by the rapid digitalisation of payments,” said Manish Patel, VP of ACI Worldwide.

“The findings of our new research reinforce our view that scalable and reliable technology will be critical to the future of payments in India as the market continues to experience incredible growth.”

ACI announced last week it had implemented a UPI-enabled retail payments solution, as it looks to drive UPI solutions in the country.