The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor has announced the launch of a new UPI digital payments suite built by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Made public at the Global Fintech Fest 2023, the new products, namely Credit Line on UPI, UPI LITE X and Tap & Pay, Hello! UPI – Conversational Payments on UPI, and BillPay Connect – Conversational Bill Payments, aim to create an inclusive, resilient, and sustainable digital payments ecosystem.

Credit Line on UPI The launch of Credit Line on UPI seeks to expand access to credit and promote financial inclusion and innovation, with the new offering enabling pre-sanctioned credit lines from banks via UPI and believed to help revolutionise customer access to credit, fostering an increasingly simplified and digital banking ecosystem. The solution seeks to speed up availing, connecting, and utilising credit lines, thus driving economic growth and progress. The initiative encompasses key features such as: the linkage of pre-sanctioned credit lines; the creation of digital credit products by banks; the establishment of interest-free credit periods and corresponding interest rates; defined schedule of charges; customer engagement channels for credit sanction requests; and the ability to link varied pre-sanctioned credit lines via UPI-enabled apps for transactions.

To ensure interoperability, all UPI apps, including bank and third-party apps, will be enabled to discover and link credit lines on UPI, as well as provide end-to-end customer lifecycle services. UPI LITE X and Tap & Pay Building on the success of the UPI LITE feature, the RBI governor launched UPI LITE X for offline payments, with the feature allowing users to both send and receive money while entirely offline, thus enabling the initiation and execution of transactions even in areas with poor connectivity. UPI LITE X is set to be accessible to anyone with a compatible device that supports Near Field Communication (NFC).

UPI LITE payments are a faster alternative to other payment methods, as less time is required to process the transaction. As QR codes have seamlessly integrated into the UPI payments ecosystem and contributed to the facilitation of digital transactions, the introduction of UPI Tap & Pay looks to increase QR Code and NFC technology adoption. In addition to the conventional scan and pay methods, users are now enabled to tap NFC-enabled QR codes at merchant locations to complete payments.

Conversational Payments The Conversational Payments launch seeks to underscore the emergence of a novel paradigm for human–machine interactions facilitated by AI-enabled transactions, which are to further deepen the reach and usage of digital payments in the region. Hello! UPI – Conversational Payments on UPI. The introduction of conversational UPI payments is to augment the user experience, as it allows users to make voice-enabled UPI payments via UPI apps, telecom calls, and IoT devices in Hindi and English, and soon in several other regional languages.

The expansion is set to broaden payment accessibility for most Indians fluent in their native languages, being beneficial especially to senior citizens and digitally inexperienced individuals. Users can give voice commands to transfer funds and input the UPI PIN to complete the transaction. BillPay Connect – Conversational Bill Payments.

With BillPay Connect, Bharat BillPay introduces a nationalised number for bill payments across India, with customers now able to fetch and pay their bills by sending ‘Hi’ on the messaging app. Additionally, customers without smartphones or immediate mobile data access will be able to pay bills by giving a missed call, following which they will receive an immediate call back for verification and payment authorisation. BillPay Connect also offers a Voice Assisted Bill Payment facility, enabling customers to pay bills through voice commands on their smart home devices and get instant voice confirmation.

Such voice confirmations are to be enabled for bill payments made at physical collection centres through payment soundbox devices. .