RBI introduces AI Conversations, UPI Lite Transactions, and NFC advancements for enhanced user experience.
In the post-pandemic digital era, UPI has become the preferred method of payment for the country. It’s incredibly convenient, hassle-free, and eliminates the need to carry loose change. To cope with this fast pacing digitalization, it is important to introduce new functions for user convenience.
Shaktikanta Das, Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) governor, announced new features at the Monetary Policy Committee. Firstly, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) aims to use advanced technology to improve digital payments. They intend to introduce ‘Conversational Payments’ on UPI, allowing users to have conversations with AI-powered systems to make secure payments in a safe environment.
As AI becomes more and more a part of the Indian citizens and online economy, using conversational instructions has great potential to make UPI even easier to use and more widespread. This is important because UPI has completely changed how digital payments work in India. This new feature will be available in Hindi and English and later on, will expand to other Indian languages.
In September, NPCI launched UPI Lite. UPI Lite enables fast and easy small-value transactions by making the best use of bank resources, which in turn lowers the chances of transaction problems.
It used to let people make transactions up to Rs 200 per day without needing a pin code, which sped up the process and made transactions easier. Although the transaction maximum is now increased to Rs 500, the highest balance allowed in UPI Lite remains at Rs 2,000. This decision is made to manage the potential risks that come with loosening the two-factor authentication requirement.
In order to boost the usage of UPI Lite, the RBI has also suggested the option of offline payments using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. This addition will not only allow users to make digital payments at stores even when their internet or phone signal is weak, but it will also ensure fast transactions with very few declines.
These upcoming changes will serve as a means to digitize India further, contributing to raising financial awareness among its citizens.
