Batua
The first differentiated NPCI alternate
The Batua platform is likely to go live in beta mode on August 15, 2025 with a developer version set for global launch on January 26, 2026.
The first use case for the beta launch is bus ticketing. The secure element is the GO mobility card. It comes in two form factors. Either like a regular credit card in plastic. Or u can get a token which you stick on the SIM card of your phone. Now you don’t need an external card. The phone version works like a card for tap and pay even if the phone has run out of power.
The original idea for this product came from my batchmate and fundaman Mrugank Paranjape, a board member of the State Bank of India and a veteran banker. Like many other of my batchmates, his journey after iit began with a two year halt at IIM Ahmedabad. Many years ago, Mrugank showed me a Titan watch which had a smart card built in. He tapped his watch on a POS and lo and behold – we had paid for coffee at the Starbucks next to the magnificent SBI building at the edge of Dalal Street.
The idea stuck. Just that Taron Mohan improvised upon the idea and MobiPay Securiservices Pvt Ltd put the smart card into a sticker which you could paste onto your SIM card. You could even remove it from one SIM card and paste it onto the other. Taron is a persistent passionate entrepreneur who sees things to their logical end. He has been doing his steps. The RBI hackathon. The endless rounds of NPCI and the do loops with nationalised banks. I do wish him luck. But this is really like doing a PhD in patience.
I am hoping that entrepreneurs like Taron and several others will deem it fit to ride on the Batua stack. Onboarding is 24 hours if you are an IITian and a few weeks for others. The Batua Beta will only be available to members of the IIT Alumni Council. So it will be limited to just a couple of hundred players.
The first use case is transit. So you need to collect the fare without a conductor in the bus in exactly one fiftieth of a second. So that the bus can onboard a bus stop full of passengers in seconds.
There is no conversation and no input so in effect Batua will issue an open ticket. And the price of the ticket will be decided retrospectively depending on where you get down. It will run cbdc. And probably be the first in the world – RBI permitting – to do so.
In contrast a regular UPI type system will need the bus to wait for ten minutes for a bus stop full load of passengers to get on. And it will need a conductor to ask you where you are going.
Best of luck India
So the next generation of Fintech
On a crypto foundation.