National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched several new payment options on the popular UPI (Unified Payment Interface) platform. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das made these announcements during the Global FinTech Festival.
Users can now make voice-commanded UPI payments using Hello! UPI. This feature allows transactions through apps, telecom calls and IoT devices in both Hindi and English. It will soon be available in various regional languages. Conversational payments on UPI and BillPay Connect are the new features of Hello! UPI.
This new feature employs AI-enabled transactions to facilitate human-machine interaction. This is expected to expand the reach and usage of digital payments in India.
Bharat BillPay has launched a nationalized number for bill payments across India, making it convenient for customers to fetch and pay their bills by sending a simple ‘hi’ to a messaging app. Even customers without smartphones or instant mobile data access can pay bills with missed calls. They will receive a call for verification and payment authorization. Additionally, BillPay Connect offers voice assisted bill payment facility. Customers can fetch and pay bills through voice commands on their smart home devices and get instant voice confirmation, it said.
NPCI launched a Line of Credit on UPI, allowing pre-approved lines of credit from banks through UPI. The initiative aims to facilitate consumer access to credit and promote financial inclusion and innovation.
UPI LITE X enables offline payments, allowing users to send and receive money even with poor connectivity. It relies on Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, offering faster payments.
This feature improves the adoption of QR code and NFC technology. Users can now tap the NFC-enabled QR code at the merchant location to complete the payment.
These product launches are aligned with RBI’s recent monetary policy announcements and aim to create a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable digital payments ecosystem. These innovations are expected to contribute towards UPI’s target of 100 billion transactions per month. NPCI collaborated with AI4Bharat at IIT Madras to develop payment language models in Hindi and English, to ensure accessibility to a wider audience.
