Additionally, the India’s Electronics and IT Ministry also unveiled a prototype of a voice-based payment system for UPI.
The Indian government will launch digital credit service this year, Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday. The digital credit service will enable small street vendors to avail loans from banks.
According to the Press Trust of India, the National Payments Corporation of India will take a lead on the project over the next 10-12 months. Vaishnav was speaking at ‘Digital Payments Utsav,’ a three-month campaign of the Indian government to accelerate the adoption of digital payments in the country.
Additionally, a prototype of a voice-based payment system for UPI, short for Unified Payments Interface, was also unveiled by the Ministry of Electronics and IT. With this, people would be able to make payments by speaking their local language using their phone, the minister said; adding that the service will be available in 18 Indian languages.
UPI is a real-time payment system that helps in instantly transferring funds between two accounts, round the clock 24X7 and 365 days. It powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application.
Over the last couple of years, UPI has evolved as one of the most popular modes of daily online digital transactions. According to NPCI data, record UPI transactions worth more than Rs 12.8 trillion were made in December 2022. It was just above Rs 30 million in August 2016, its launch year.
Last month, the online payment service was extended to NRIs from 10 countries that have NRE/NRO accounts. Earlier this month, the country’s largest digital payment application PhonePe reportedly rolled out its services to international merchant outlets in five countries.
