The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Finance Ministry have given the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) permission to acquire up to 10% of the Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC), a government project to compete with global e-commerce giants in the domestic market.
According to the sources, the Bank of India is also planning to participate in ONDC and might end up with a 5 to 7% share. Dilip Asbe, CEO of NPCI, is already a member of the ONDC Advisory Council.
Additionally, as per the sources, ONDC is in discussions with three possible investors, including NPCI and BoI. Twenty stakeholders in all, including seventeen that have already signed up, are likely to be involved with the government’s e-commerce platform.
According to analysts, ONDC seeks to extend the market and make the service available even to the most basic users, much like UPI did for digital payments. The open network aims to connect 900 million customers and 1.2 million merchants through the open network and achieve the $48 billion milestone in terms of gross merchandise value in the next two years, increasing the country’s e-commerce penetration to 25%.
ONDC has begun laying the foundation for facilitating business-to-business (B2B) commerce transactions on the network even as it gears up for a public debut in September.
Microsoft joined the interoperable e-commerce scheme supported by the Indian government earlier this month. The business said that it intends to release a group shopping app that will work with ONDC. Microsoft is now the first of its major tech competitors, including Amazon, Google, and Meta (formerly Facebook), to join the network.
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