RBI Governor Launches UPI Tap & Pay and AI-Powered MyUPI at Global Fintech Fest 2026

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra has introduced two major additions to India's retail payments architecture—UPI 'Tap & Pay' and 'MyUPI'—during the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2026 in Mumbai. Developed in partnership with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the initiatives are designed to reduce checkout latency at merchant counters and enhance consumer security across multiple banking apps.

The unveilings took place in the presence of NPCI Non-Executive Chairman and Independent Director Ajay Kumar Choudhary alongside senior banking and fintech executives.

Offline-Capable Tap & Pay for In-Store Retail

UPI Tap & Pay brings Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities directly to point-of-sale (POS) terminals. To execute a payment, a user unlocks an NFC-enabled smartphone and taps it against a compatible terminal.

Key features of the UPI Tap & Pay rollout include:

• Zero-Internet Dependency on Smartphones: Unlike conventional dynamic or static QR-code scans, the consumer's smartphone does not require active mobile internet connectivity, as the payment is completed using the POS terminal's data connection.
• PIN-Free Threshold: Transactions up to ₹5,000 can be processed without entering a UPI PIN. For payments exceeding ₹5,000, users enter their PIN on the POS terminal.
• Multi-Account Compatibility: The feature supports multiple linked instruments, including bank accounts and RuPay Credit Cards on UPI.

The feature builds upon NPCI’s introduction of UPI Biometric Authentication at GFF 2025, which saw biometric-authenticated UPI transactions cross 6.29 billion by August 31, 2026.

MyUPI and AI-Driven Risk Controls

Alongside merchant checkout upgrades, the central bank launched MyUPI (also termed UPI Help 2.0), a centralised customer support and governance architecture powered by NPCI’s domain-specific Small Language Model, Finance Model for India (FiMI).

MyUPI provides a consolidated view of user transaction histories and recurring AutoPay mandates spanning various third-party application providers (TPAPs) and issuing banks. It also introduces proactive fraud prevention tools directly accessible to account holders:

• Safety Switch: Gives consumers the ability to instantly block or decline UPI debit transactions if an account breach or suspicious activity is detected.
• UPI Number Delink: Enables account holders to disassociate their mobile phone number from receiving incoming UPI transactions across platforms.

Significance for Markets and the Payments Ecosystem

For the broader fintech and banking ecosystem, these product launches address two critical operational bottlenecks: checkout delays in high-density retail environments and fragmented grievance redressal across disparate bank applications.

By eliminating the dependency on consumer data connectivity at store counters and incorporating RuPay Credit on UPI, the initiative provides merchant acquirers and POS deployment networks an expanded avenue to process high-frequency ticket sizes. Concurrently, centralised AI dispute handling and account kill switches are intended to mitigate retail fraud, bolstering trust across institutional lenders and retail payment participants.

Tags: Reserve Bank of India National Payments Corporation of India UPI FinTech Digital Payments Banking