India’s payments giant thinks AI will be heavily involved in the next era of digital payments growth

India’s digital payments share has increased over the years, with the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) growing to more than 750 million daily transactions. With the goal of reaching more than a billion daily transactions, Dilip Asbe, MD and CEO of National Payments Corporation of India, which oversees UPI, thinks AI will be heavily involved in the next phase of user growth, fraud prevention, and credit distribution.

In an interview with TechCrunch at Mumbai Tech Week (MTW) ​​2026 last month, Asbe said AI could drive the next half a billion users through NPCI, India’s central bank, and the government in partnership.

“AI will be used very effectively when we look at the next wave of UPI, and that includes all aspects, including reaching new users. We must use AI effectively to protect our current citizens, detect fraud, and detect fraud. AI must also be used to provide credit to all users and merchants with digital footprints,” he said. “We have to use AI to look for voice and multilingual solutions to make boarding easier.”

Many companies have talked about voice as an important interface in India to communicate with companies or programs. Asbe believes it’s early days for that, as voice models will need to be more accurate. NPCI launched a voice assistant-based collaboration program in 2023. Asbe noted that the adoption of that is yet to take off, and if appropriate use occurs, voice can be an important part of the payment ecosystem.

AI in finance and regulation

In the US, startups and public companies are racing to add AI to finance. Coinbase and Robinhood now allow agents to trade on behalf of users, and OpenAI allows you to upload personal account data to ChatGPT for financial advice. NPCI showed some demos about agent trading and payments with Razorpay last year. However, there has never been a wide release of some of these skills.

The CEO of NPCI thinks that with strong regulations and framework, India too can use AI-powered finance. He said there should be adequate security for users and risk mitigation – and if something goes wrong, the system should be able to check the instructions and permission given by the user to the agent.

Apart from the use of models, Asbe thinks that the Indian finance ecosystem has an opportunity to create micro-language models.

“We believe that the models will differ from each other according to the data sets available to them,” he said. “We have a very rich data set in our ecosystem. I think there is a huge opportunity for Indian companies – banks, FinTechs, and the ecosystem – to create the kinds of micro-languages ​​that are as sharp, specific, and decisive as possible.”

Last year, NPCI launched a model called FIMI to resolve user disputes. Asbe noted that it serves more than a million users to cancel orders and resolve issues, and is growing rapidly.

UPI competition

NPCI has long called for healthy competition among UPI apps, but data suggests that Walmart-owned PhonePe and Google Pay have more than 80% market share. The regulator’s plan to cap the app’s market share at 30% is set to take effect on December 31, 2026, unless it pushes back the deadline again.

During the interview, Asbe said that UPI applications have very low switching costs and many key features are shared. He noted that PhonePe and Google have poured millions into their apps to gain their market position. He said that if new applications find viable business models within the fintech ecosystem, their share will increase.

“I believe that there are many problems that make us realize that this risk of concentration exists, and one of the important reasons is the availability of a commercial model that works. When we see a commercial model available in the ecosystem, I believe that new players will start investing more,” said Asbe.

In 2024, the payments body implemented its BHIM UPI program to make it competitive and increase its usage. While its transaction volume has grown, its overall market share is around 1%. Asbe said that with BHIM, there is no target market share that NPCI is looking at. But it wants to make it an independent and secure alternative to other applications, Asbe said.

India is one of the largest digital economies, and investors around the world will be looking at the regulatory environment to invest in new fintech solutions and make the market more competitive.