The National Payments Corporation of India Introduces Voice-Enabled UPI Payments and More
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has introduced several new payment options on the popular Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform, including conversational transactions. The launch was announced by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das at the Global Fintech Festival. These new offerings, include Credit Line on UPI, UPI LITE X, Tap & Pay, and Hello! UPI, and Conversational Bill Payments, are aimed at fostering an inclusive, resilient, and sustainable digital payments ecosystem while helping UPI achieve the goal of 100 billion transactions per month.
Hello! UPI enables users to make voice-enabled UPI payments through apps, telecom calls, and IoT devices in both Hindi and English, with plans to support other regional languages in the future. Conversational Payments on UPI and BillPay Connect are part of Hello! UPI, allowing for AI-enabled transactions and streamlined bill payments. NPCI has collaborated with AI4Bharat at IIT Madras to co-develop Hindi and English payment language models. BillPay Connect introduces a nationalized number for bill payments across India, simplifying bill payments via messaging apps and even allowing customers without smartphones to pay bills via a missed call.
Additionally, BillPay Connect offers Voice Assisted Bill Payments, enabling customers to fetch and pay bills through voice commands on smart home devices. To expand access to credit and promote financial inclusion, NPCI has introduced credit lines on UPI, facilitating pre-sanctioned credit lines from banks via UPI. Moreover, UPI LITE X enables offline payments, allowing users to send and receive money even without an internet connection, benefiting areas with poor connectivity. UPI Tap & Pay enhances QR code and NFC technology adoption, allowing users to tap NFC-enabled QR codes at merchant locations for quick payments.
These launches align with recent RBI monetary policy announcements and are expected to contribute to the growth and development of India’s digital payments ecosystem. The launches aligned with the RBI community in its recent monetary policy announcements, the NPCI said. Terming the NPCI as the “crown jewel” of India’s technology sector, Nilekani said it has far exceeded expectations. The structure of NPCI was set up by the RBI in 2008 as a non-profit company for payments. “It has set the stage for national information utilities. Using NPCI as the template, we have several bodies of similar structures, whether it is GSTM for taxes, DigiYatra app, ONDC,” he said. In 2016, there were 1,000 startups in the country, which has grown to 1 lakh in 2023, he added.
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