India’s digital payments ecosystem is set to enter its next phase of growth, with artificial intelligence expected to play a central role in expanding adoption, strengthening security, and improving financial inclusion. Dilip Asbe, Managing Director and CEO of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), said AI will be a key enabler as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) aims to grow from more than 750 million daily transactions to over 1 billion.
Speaking during an interview at Mumbai Tech Week (MTW) 2026, Asbe said NPCI, the Reserve Bank of India, and the government are working together to use AI to bring the next 500 million users onto UPI.
“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, to find fraud, and to find mules. AI must also be used to provide credit to all the users and merchants who have digital footprints,” he said. “We must use AI to look at the voice and multilingual solutions to make onboarding simpler.”
Asbe said voice-based payments are still in the early stages, as voice models need greater accuracy. NPCI introduced a voice assistant-based interactive system in 2023, but adoption has remained limited. He believes voice technology could become an important part of the payments ecosystem once the right use cases emerge.
He also said India can adopt AI-powered financial services with strong regulations, user protection, and clear consent frameworks. According to Asbe, the country’s banking and fintech ecosystem has a major opportunity to build small language models using its rich financial datasets.
“We believe that the models will differentiate from each other based on the data sets that are made available to them,” he said. “We have a very rich data set in our ecosystem. I think there is a big opportunity for Indian companies — the banks, FinTechs, and the ecosystem — to create small language models which are sharp, specific, and as deterministic as possible.”
NPCI’s FIMI dispute resolution model, launched in 2024, now serves more than 1 million users by helping cancel mandates and resolve payment issues.
Asbe also addressed competition in the UPI ecosystem. While PhonePe and Google Pay together account for over 80% of the market, he said stronger commercial models would encourage new fintech players to invest and compete. He added that NPCI’s BHIM app, which currently holds around 1% market share, is intended to remain a sovereign and secure alternative rather than target a specific market share.
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