The Frictionless Paradox: Evaluating the Effect of Automated Digital Banking Payments (UPI Autopay & CBDC) on SIP Retention and Investor Engagement
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Abstract
This research provides a critical analysis of the paradox of frictionless investment ecosystem in India, where the ease of transactions can enhance the continuity of Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) and ease of engagement is maximized by presenting salient information, providing user control, building trust, and increasing financial literacy. The study design is quantitative secondary data that is solely external public evidences. The empirical base includes the SEBI Investor Survey 2025, Reserve Bank of India's nationwide digital-payment survey and retail CBDC statistics, AMFI and NSE/CMIE SIP series, CAMSPay UPI AutoPay operating disclosures and NPCI's UPI AutoPay framework. The external datasets are used to capture the following aspects of the household investment behaviour, consumer digital-payment adoption, payment-platform activity, SIP account dynamics and e₹ ecosystem expansion. Analysis is based on descriptive statistics, growth rates, compound annual growth rates, lifecycle ratios and cross source triangulation. The number of outstanding SIP accounts grew by 98.1% and 18.6% annually to reach 10.5 crore in FY26, as compared to 5.3 crore in FY22, and UPI AutoPay emerged as one of the key SIP mandate routes in CAMSPay's mutual-fund payment network (NSE, 2026; CAMS, 2024). RBI evidence indicates that 86.1% of consumers who tried digital payments have adopted them, with ease and convenience being the top driver for their adoption, while SEBI evidence suggests that webinars and email updates are the preferred channels for active investors to engage with digital payments (RBI, 2024b; SEBI, 2026). The results validate a two-path approach: a seamless execution helps to reinforce retention, while a well-designed payment trigger and trusted digital points help reinforce engagement. CBDC/e₹ is assessed as an adoption-ready pathway with increasing infrastructure and UPI-QR interoperability.