When UPI meets voice command

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Hello UPI, please transfer 240 rupees to vegetable vendor Raju Bhaiya! Now you must be thinking that what am I doing? Don’t be surprised because soon you will be able to make payments through UPI, just by voice. The Reserve Bank of India is preparing the draft of Conversation Payments.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said that if digital economy and artificial intelligence join hands, then it will be easier for the consumer and the reach of systems like UPI will increase. Therefore, through Conversation Payments, RBI, AI and UPI will come together to bring a new and easy payment system.

It has been said in the proposal of RBI that with the help of Artificial Intelligence i.e. AI, a system will be prepared in UPI which will allow the user to make payments by speaking i.e. through Conversation. Experts believe that the use of such voice commands will make it easier for those UPI users who do not know how to read and write. Such people will be able to pay just by speaking. This feature will initially be available in Hindi and English and later in other Indian languages as well.

By July 2023, the figure of UPI transaction had reached about 10 billion. The introduction of voice payment facility will further help in increasing the reach of UPI. Apart from Conversation Payment, RBI is also taking several steps to make the use of UPI easier. On the same lines, RBI has increased the limit of digital payment of small amounts.

Until now payment of Rs 200 could be made through UPI Lite, which has now increased to Rs 500. National Payments Corporation of India launched UPI Lite in September 2022. UPI LITE completes the transaction directly by debiting the balance. For this, the core banking system of the customer’s bank is not required in real time. Through the UPI LITE feature, money can be added from the account of all major banks and it is accepted by all UPI merchants and QRs. No PIN is required for the transaction and due to this the transaction is also quick. While there has definitely been a change in the UPI transaction limit, but the balance limit for UPI LITE is still Rs 2,000.

RBI is preparing for another major change to make the use of UPI easier. Soon, these UPI transactions will not need a PIN. RBI has announced the facility of offline UPI payments through Near-field communication i.e. NFC technology. These payments will also be done through UPI Lite. This will make payment easier as the user just needs to tap his smartphone on the point-of-sale ie PoS machine. You will be able to make payment without feeding PIN, that too in places where network connectivity is poor or non-existent, offline payment can be done through this technology. NFC is a short range wireless connectivity where two wireless devices present in the vicinity can connect to each other and so payment takes place.

The scope of UPI is continuously increasing and with these new changes, the method of online payment will become easier. RBI also wants the same that in a cashless economy, there should be less cash transactions and more digital transactions like UPI.