India's payments chief: AI to be key in next wave of digital payment growth
NPCI CEO Dilip Asbe believes artificial intelligence will drive the next half-billion UPI users, enhance fraud prevention, and expand credit access, while stressing the need for robust regulation.
India's Unified Payment Interface (UPI) now handles over 750 million daily transactions, with a target of exceeding one billion. In an interview with TechCrunch last month at Mumbai Tech Week, Dilip Asbe, MD and CEO of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), said AI would be heavily involved in the next phase of UPI growth.
Asbe stated that AI will be used effectively to reach new users, protect existing ones by detecting fraud and mules, and provide credit to users and merchants with digital footprints. He also highlighted voice and multilingual solutions to simplify onboarding, though noting that voice models need to become more accurate. NPCI launched a voice assistant in 2023, but adoption has been slow.
On AI in finance, Asbe emphasized the need for strong regulations and frameworks to adopt AI-powered finance in India. He sees an opportunity to build small, specific language models using India's rich datasets. Last year, NPCI introduced the FIMI model to resolve user disputes, now serving over a million users and scaling quickly.
Regarding UPI app competition, Asbe noted that PhonePe and Google Pay hold over 80% market share. The regulator's plan to cap an app's share at 30% is set to take effect by end of 2026. Asbe believes new players need viable commercial models to invest heavily. NPCI's own BHIM app, spun off in 2024, has around 1% share and is positioned as a sovereign, secure alternative.
