Digital Payment

Digital payment authentication must move beyond passwords and one-time passwords (OTPs) as artificial intelligence-driven commerce gathers pace, a top Visa official said on Thursday. "Authentication cannot remain dependent on passwords or one-time codes designed for an earlier digital era. It must become secured by design, invisible to the consumer, and resilient against increasingly sophisticated fraud," Suresh Sethi, group country manager for India and South Asia of Visa, said at a company event. The global payments major launched its 'Payment Passkey' solution in India on Thursday. The company said VPP enables consumers to authenticate online card payments using capabilities already built into their mobile devices, including fingerprint, facial recognition, device PIN or pattern, instead of relying solely on OTPs. This helps satisfy the two-factor authentication requirement applicable in India. Sethi said the solution is built on globally accepted FIDO standards and is designed

UPI adoption is rising among women entrepreneurs, but their digital finance journey is also expanding into credit, investments and tech

Payments giant Visa said Wednesday that it has embedded its payment network inside of ChatGPT, empowering the chatbot to independently shop and complete transactions on behalf of its user. It means AI agents can not only recommend products but complete the purchase on the user's behalf, at potentially any merchant that accepts Visa. The payment network's previous attempts at this technological leap were confined to a single retailer or a small set of enrolled merchants. It is not OpenAI's first attempt at e-commerce. The company late last year announced Instant Checkout, which allowed ChatGPT to scour the internet for a specific item like a digital personal shopper. But the process was prone to errors and was not widely adopted by merchants due to the fee that OpenAI was charging merchants. The company retired Instant Checkout in March. Visa's collaboration is different from OpenAI's previous attempts, as it will allow users to link their Visa cards to ChatGPT to shop and make it ..

Central bank is exploring transaction delays, broader customer controls and a kill switch mechanism as digital payment frauds continue to rise in value

Move aims to track originators of money transfers via mule accounts

The RBI's paper correctly identifies that the nature of fraud has changed. Most frauds today are authorised push payments, or APP frauds

RBI holds repo rate steady The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) kept the repo rate unchanged at 5.25%, maintaining a neutral stance.

Growth in QR codes and transaction volumes underscores rising merchant adoption and expanding digital payments ecosystem across India

MobiKwik plans to scale soundbox and EDC deployment, targeting 10% revenue contribution as it expands offline merchant acquiring beyond Tier I cities

According to the latest data, BHIM currently holds a 0.86 per cent share of UPI transactions

Under the draft, an eligible victim will receive 85 per cent of the net loss amount, or ₹25,000, whichever is lower

Parliamentary panel urges government to create a sustainable revenue model for the UPI ecosystem, warning that current incentives cover only a fraction of industry costs

Fintech firm Cred receives RBI's final licence to operate as a payment aggregator, allowing it to onboard merchants and process payments across instruments

The clarification follows industry representations seeking clarity on whether PA norms apply to P2PM transactions, which typically involve small merchants and low ticket sizes

Govt sources say rural-focused feature phone solutions such as UPI 123Pay, IVR systems and offline payments will drive the next phase of India's digital payments expansion beyond smartphones

Fintechs, NPCI are deepening AI integration across India's payments stack, from agentic interfaces and conversational payments to domain-specific LLMs designed to streamline disputes and transactions

RBI's Digital Payments Index climbed to 516.76 in September 2025 from 465.33 a year earlier, driven by gains in payment performance and enablers

Walmart-backed PhonePe, which aims to float its initial public offering (IPO) in April, plans to deepen its presence in India's digital payments market while expanding into financial services and new consumer platforms. In its draft papers, the company said digital payments will remain the core driver of growth, supported by investments to expand its user base, addressable market and platform scale. India's total addressable market for digital consumer payments stood at Rs 301 lakh crore in fiscal 2025 and is projected to grow to Rs 602-681 lakh crore by fiscal 2030, the company said, citing industry estimates. According to sources, PhonePe is aiming to launch its IPO in April. The proposed offering will be entirely an offer for sale of 5.06 crore shares by Walmart, Microsoft and Tiger Global, with no fresh issue component. In January, the company received regulatory approval from the Sebi to proceed with its maiden public offering, following its confidential filing in September.

RBI has announced a one-time compensation of up to Rs 25,000 for victims of small-value digital frauds, while also moving to tighten norms on mis-selling and loan recovery practices

Fraud moves fast, so must we