India’s UPI chief sees AI driving payments growth

India’s payment rails are already one of the world’s most important fintech infrastructures. The next phase may be shaped by AI.

What happened

Dilip Asbe, CEO of the National Payments Corporation of India, said AI could play a major role in the next phase of UPI growth.

Potential use cases include user onboarding, fraud prevention, credit distribution, voice interfaces and small language models for financial workflows. UPI is already processing more than 750M daily transactions, with a target of over 1B daily transactions.

Why it matters

This is a strong fintech infrastructure signal.

AI could help India’s payment system scale while improving fraud controls, access and user experience. Because UPI sits at the centre of India’s digital economy, even small AI-driven changes could affect millions of users and merchants.

The bigger picture

The next fintech wave may be built on top of national payment rails. AI could become a core layer for making those rails safer, easier to use and more accessible across languages and customer segments.