Across major global economies, the business sector has been the primary engine of value creation, contributing the majority of Gross Value Added (GVA). Periods of strong national economic growth have also closely tracked the growth of the business sector.

In India, the business sector contributes meaningfully to nominal GVA, well below the level in global economies. Nevertheless, it will be the backbone to building a self-reliant economy. It drives the majority of the nation's investment in innovation. Realizing the full potential of this engine will require sustained focus on four key enablers: global technological competitiveness, a future-ready workforce, physical infrastructure, and a connected digital ecosystem. This report explores how a connected digital ecosystem can be the foundation for the nation's next phase of growth, toward Viksit Bharat.

India has already digitized and standardized nearly every one of these blocks individually. The country has progressed substantially on digital payment penetration. But B2B commerce continues to suffer from the friction caused by information asymmetry. Across domestic business flows, inefficiency persists as manual operations and undigitized invoices force teams to manually reconcile transactions across disconnected systems, resulting in thin-file SME borrowers being underserved, given that available capital is already constrained. This credit gap compounds into a significant shortfall. Smaller enterprises are particularly underserved, with formal channels meeting only a fraction of debt demand.

Building transactional efficiency across B2B workflows is the next opportunity. A centralized interoperable layer that connects all the entities in the ecosystem and digitizes the entire order-to-cash cycle. A centralized infrastructure can function as a secure information exchange for B2B operations. It can link different business systems with the buyer and seller banks using standardized APIs, with minimal impact on existing internal systems. As adoption expands, the layer can be integrated beyond immediate business systems to various government and institutional digital platforms.

This unlocks dividends across business workflows. On transactional efficiency, standardized onboarding and automated reconciliation could improve information integrity and reduce manual information entry. With a large base of GST and non-GST e-invoices addressable through digitization each month, the impact on the economy is multifold.

To address credit access, buyer-confirmed invoices can turn a significant pool of delayed MSME receivables into financeable records, shifting underwriting from collateral to cash flow. That efficiency would benefit a large share of MSMEs that contribute substantially to GDP. Layered on top, advanced analytics and AI can multiply those gains across B2B ecosystem players through cash-flow intelligence, dynamic risk scoring, agentic credit underwriting, and open-market intelligence. Over time, agentic AI can orchestrate the entire trade cycle.

To eliminate fragmentation risk and realize its full potential, a neutral, open and regulated national entity could govern the layer. A neutral operator modeled on Aadhaar and UPI can enable collective integration and build regulated trust. India's digital public infrastructure (DPI) playbook and global precedents show that policy-enabled, standardized interoperable rails can scale rapidly when governance is right.

Reaching broad participation requires addressing concerns for both ecosystem partners and businesses. Business system providers are concerned about time, cost and the effort that goes into technical integration. They are also looking at the ambiguity around liability of shared information, and the cold-start challenge limiting value until adoption expands. Businesses, especially MSMEs, are concerned about uncertain upfront returns along with the effort of digitizing and upskilling the workforce.

Mitigation requires coordinated effort across central bodies, business systems, and anchor businesses. Global benchmarks highlight the importance of central recognition to drive adoption, while ecosystem-wide efforts to scale up are critical to bring in network effects. Technology can generate simple customer journeys, expedite systems integrations, and support the flow of information to state systems.

Participation creates value for every stakeholder. Opting out carries substantial risks and potential future costs. Financial service providers and business systems that opt out risk losing primary relationships, daily engagement, and key accounts to better-integrated competitors. Businesses may be stuck with manual work and cash-flow strain, while public systems could face a wide MSME credit gap and inefficiency that holds back growth.

With the support of ecosystem partners, the interoperable layer can become India's B2B Operating System, turning fragmented activity into a trusted, connected foundation for the nation's next phase of growth, toward Viksit Bharat.

About NPCI Bharat BillPay Limited (NBBL)

NBBL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), is at the forefront of digital payments and collections, driving financial inclusion and enhancing customer convenience. NBBL offers a unified, interoperable, and accessible ecosystem for bill payments and collections, enabling secure and reliable “Anytime, Anywhere” transactions for individuals and businesses. Through its Bharat Connect (BBPS) platform, NBBL caters to individual users with seamless bill payment solutions across diverse categories. For B2B, it provides ERP interoperability, streamlined collections, invoice management, reconciliation, and access to structured financing options. Developed by NBBL, Banking Connect is a net banking solution that enables interoperability between banks and payment aggregators, allowing customers to transact with greater ease and speed across merchants through banks. NBBL is also the designated settlement agency for the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), ensuring safe, secure, and reliable settlements on the platform.