MUMBAI, Sept 1 (Reuters) – India is \u2060preparing a framework that would let AI agents make small digital payments without approval for every \u2060transaction, three sources familiar with the matter said, potentially making UPI one of the world’s \u200clargest networks with agentic payments.<\/p>\n
While leading payment companies have launched such frameworks in the U.S., Europe, Singapore and Australia, a rollout on the popular Unified Payments Interface would also put India among the first countries to have a national infrastructure for agentic AI payments.<\/p>\n
UPI, operated by \u200bthe National Payments Corporation of India, is the world’s largest retail \u2060fast-payment system by transaction volume, according to \u2060a 2025 IMF report.<\/p>\n
It processed 24.51 billion transactions worth 29.82 trillion Indian rupees ($314.21 billion) in August, with Google Pay \u2060and \u200cWalmart’s PhonePe accounting for around three-fourths of monthly transaction volumes.<\/p>\n
The Unified Agent Protocol is likely to be unveiled next week at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the \u2060details are private.<\/p>\n
The NPCI did not immediately respond to Reuters queries \u200bseeking comment.<\/p>\n
EARLY USE CASES <\/p>\n
Low-value, frequent purchases \u200csuch as groceries are likely to be among the first use cases, the first source said, \u2060adding that e-commerce platforms \u200bare well-placed to capture early demand.<\/p>\n
NPCI expects use cases to eventually become more sophisticated, the source said. For example, AI agents could place orders based on sale offers and discounts and make investments based on specified instructions around price thresholds.<\/p>\n
The protocol \u2060is expected to draw on two existing UPI mechanisms \u2014 UPI Circle, \u200bwhich lets a primary account holder delegate payment authority to a secondary user such as an AI agent, and Reserve Pay, which lets customers block funds for multiple debits.<\/p>\n
Banks currently cap such blocks at 10,000 rupees ($105.44) for up to \u206090 days, though this limit and its validity may be revisited for agentic use, the sources added.<\/p>\n
NPCI is expected to offer infrastructure for merchants to integrate directly, letting customers set rule-based instructions for AI agents on when and how much to pay, with built-in spending limits, audit trails and identity checks, the sources said.<\/p>\n
They added that \u200bthe NPCI plans to build in a liability framework, but did not provide \u2060details.<\/p>\n
GLOBAL PUSH<\/p>\n
Global card networks Mastercard and Visa are also separately building similar agentic capabilities for payments in India, mirroring \u200ba global push by these companies to secure AI-driven commerce.<\/p>\n
Mastercard completed its \u200cfirst authenticated agentic transaction in New Delhi in June.<\/p>\n
Earlier \u200bthis year, fintech firm Pine Labs launched its own agentic protocol, P3P, letting AI agents complete UPI payments after a single upfront authorisation.<\/p>\n
($1 = 94.9050 Indian rupees)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ashwin Manikandan; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MUMBAI, Sept 1 (Reuters) – India is \u2060preparing a framework that would let AI agents make small digital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2306,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-756584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}