NPCI Introduces Biometric UPI Payments, PayPal Partnership Announced

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) launched a slew of initiatives centred around its flagship Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on Tuesday, including on-device biometric authentication. Apart from this, it also launched an Aadhaar-based Face Authentication in UPI to enable Aadhaar-linked biometric authentication for setting or resetting UPI PIN.

In addition, it launched a new mode for Cash Withdrawal through Micro ATMs using UPI at UPI Cash Points, which are run by business correspondents, as per an official statement. Department of Financial Services (DFS) Secretary M Nagaraju launched a majority of the products at the annual Global Fintech Fest here.

The On-Device Authentication for UPI enables customers to authenticate UPI payments directly through their smartphone's built-in security options, such as fingerprint or face unlock, as an alternative to manually entering the UPI PIN, an official statement said. The facility will be made available to customers who choose to opt in, giving them control over their preferred mode of authentication, it said.

Global payments major PayPal also announced a tie-up with NPCI arm NPCI International Payments to integrate UPI on PayPal World, a global platform expected to launch in 2025. The NPCI arm becomes the first entity globally to partner with PayPal's new service, which is nearly 25 years old, and will help Indians using UPI make payments to foreign merchants in Indian rupees.

Paypal solves the complexity of cross-border commerce with a cloud native, multi-region deployment architecture that ensures low latency and high availability worldwide, an official statement said. Apart from these, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar also launched several products at the same event, including an initiative that allows joint account holders and multi-signatory account holders to use UPI for payments. The DG also launched small-value transactions using wearable glasses via UPI Lite, as well as forex on Bharat Connect.