Designing Change: My Journey Through Digital Payments Transformation

Designing Change is the insider's account of how India leapt from a cheque-based system to one of the world's most advanced digital payments ecosystems. Drawing on more than three decades across government, global banks, NPCI, the World Bank, and IIM Bangalore, Dr. Balakrishnan Mahadevan (Balu) narrates how systems like IMPS, AEPS, NACH, RuPay, and UPI were built, scaled, and woven into the country's economic fabric.

Blending personal journey with institutional history, the book reveals the ideas, policies, leadership values, and technical innovations that enabled India to create inclusive, interoperable, real-time digital public infrastructure at population scale. Clear, engaging, and rich in detail, it explains not just what India achieved, but how it did so - through discipline, collaboration, and purposeful design.

An essential read for policymakers, bankers, technologists, entrepreneurs, students, and anyone interested in how resilient institutions and thoughtful system design can transform a nation.