On September 6, 2023, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) introduced several new features for UPI (Unified Payments Interface) to enhance its capabilities and aim for 100 billion monthly transactions. These features include Credit Line on UPI, Conversational Payment Mode called 'Hello UPI,' BillPay Connect, UPI Tap & Pay, and UPI Lite X. The launch event took place in Mumbai and was attended by Shaktikanta Das, the RBI Governor, and Nandan Nilekani, the co-founder and non-executive Chairman of Infosys.

Just a week after UPI processed 10 billion transactions in August, the NPCI raised its monthly transaction goal from 30 billion to 100 billion, thanks to the new features introduced.

Credit Line on UPI

You can use this feature by scanning a QR code with your UPI-linked app to make purchases. Simply choose your bank, enter the amount, and select the credit line option. It's currently available with some public and private sector banks and is active on payment apps like Bhim, Paytm, Payzapp, and GPay.

Hello UPI

The conversational payment mode can understand both spoken language and silence. It can also convert text to numbers and text into speech.

UPI Lite X

Feature phone users can upgrade to UPI Lite X, allowing peer-to-peer transactions even without an active network or internet. They can simply tap their NFC-enabled phones together, and the money transfer will occur once either phone connects to a network.

UPI Tap & Pay Works

To use this feature, tiny cards with NFC chips are linked to the user's unique QR code and UPI ID. Users can obtain these cards by visiting a partner bank's contactless UPI card kiosk. After selecting a card design, users scan their QR code for verification, and the UPI ID is linked to the card. The card is then dispensed and can be attached to mobile phones for tap-based payments.

“NPCI is the crown jewel of India’s technology sector. The structure of NPCI set up by RBI in 2008 as a non-profit company for payments, far expected expectations. It has set the stage for national information utilities. Using NPCI as the template we have several bodies now of similar structures whether it is GSTM for taxes, Digi yatra app, ONDC. All these other tech companies we have set up in India on non-profit basis to create on digital public infrastructure, use NPCI’s model. Hope they too will add value." -  Nadan Nilekan

“In India, we are going from an offline informal low productivity economy to a online formal high productivity economy as millions of people join society, get digital ids, bank accounts, mobile solutions and use digital capital to get credit. In the next 20 years, we will see huge formalisation of India,” he added.