Why in news?  National payment corporation of India has launched new intiatives at the Global Fintech Festival .

Highlights:

• NPCI launched a slew of new payment options on popular payments platform UPI including conversational transactions.

Credit Line on UPI

• It enables pre-sanctioned credit lines from banks through UPI
• Creation of digital credit products by banks, the establishment of interest-free credit periods, defined schedule of charges, and the ability to link various pre-sanctioned credit lines via UPI-enabled apps for transactions are other various products
• All UPI apps, including bank and third-party apps, will be empowered to discover and link credit lines on UPI, as well as provide end-to-end customer lifecycle services.

UPI LITE X and Tap & Pay

• It ensures money transaction completely offline, allowing users to initiate and execute transactions even in areas with poor connectivity, such as underground stations, remote areas, etc.
• It will be accessible to anyone with a compatible device that supports Near Field Communication (NFC).

Hello! UPI – Conversational Payments on UPI

• It will augment user experience by enabling them to make voice-enabled UPI payments via UPI Apps, telecom calls, and IoT devices in Hindi and English, and will soon be available in several other regional languages
• NPCI has partnered with the Bhashini program – AI4Bharat at IIT Madras, to co-develop Hindi and English payment language models.

BillPay Connect – Conversational Bill Payments:

• It introduces a nationalized number for bill payments across India.
• Customers can pay their bills by sending a simple ‘Hi’ on the messaging app.
• Customers without smartphones or immediate mobile data access will be able to pay bills by giving a missed call.