Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Shaktikanta Das has revealed in the Global Fintech Festival that the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has added many additional payment methods, including conversational transactions, to the well-known UPI platform in a big drive to increase digital payments.

Innovative Digital Payment Products included

1. Hello! UPI - conversational payments: This feature enables users to make voice-enabled UPI payments through apps, phone calls, and IoT devices in Hindi and English, with more regional languages to come. It simplifies tasks like splitting bills or paying friends.

2. Credit line on UPI: This allows customers to access pre-sanctioned credit from banks through UPI, promoting financial inclusion and innovation.

3. UPI LITE X for offline payments: Users can send and receive money offline, enhancing accessibility, especially in areas with poor connectivity. UPI LITE payments are faster and require less processing time.

About Unified Payments Interface (UPI)

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood.

It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience.
With the above context in mind, NPCI conducted a pilot launch with 21 member banks. The pilot launch was on 11th April 2016 by Dr. Raghuram G Rajan, Governor, RBI at Mumbai. Banks have started to upload their UPI enabled Apps on Google Play store from 25th August, 2016 onwards.

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an umbrella organization for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India, is an initiative of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, for creating a robust Payment & Settlement Infrastructure in India.

Considering the utility nature of the objects of NPCI, it has been incorporated as a “Not for Profit” Company under the provisions of Section 25 of Companies Act 1956 (now Section 8 of Companies Act 2013), with an intention to provide infrastructure to the entire Banking system in India for physical as well as electronic payment and settlement systems.

The Company is focused on bringing innovations in the retail payment systems through the use of technology for achieving greater efficiency in operations and widening the reach of payment systems.

The ten core promoter banks are State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Bank of India, ICICI Bank Limited, HDFC Bank Limited, Citibank N. A. and HSBC. In 2016 the shareholding was broad-based to 56 member banks to include more banks representing all sectors.

In 2020, new entities regulated by RBI were inducted, consisting of Payment Service Operators, payment banks, Small Finance Banks, etc. The shares were allotted pursuant to issuance of equity shares on private placement basis in compliance to the applicable provisions of the Companies Act, 2013.