Online payments are now getting advanced by voice commands. This means that Indian customers can now complete UPI transactions by using their voice or just by typing their UPI ID or mobile number.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), in collaboration with an AI (Artificial Intelligence) startup, CoRover launched the new payment feature app on Friday, 23rd August, at the Global Fintech Fest.
This conversational voice payments system has been integrated into AskDISHA, the AI virtual assistant for IRCTC and Indian Railways. Now, a user doesn’t need to give input commands for UPI transactions, they will be able to complete their payments by only speaking to the AI-powered solution.
Ankush Sabharwal, Chief Executive of CoRover AI said that the natural way is that when everyone sees and talks, so why should technology not talk? In this pursuit, with the help of NPCI and IRCTC, someone will now be able to talk to Disha (Voice-enable feature) and ask her to get their ticket booked, including payment.
Consumers will also have added benefits including having the options of using other payment methods such as credit and debit cards, net banking and wallets. The system will automatically retrieve the corresponding UPI ID, and it will send a payment request via the user’s default app.
The companies announced that with their integration with payment gateway, the innovation feature in UPI marks a major advancement in the ease and accessibility of digital transactions.
They also said that technology removes language barriers and makes transactions faster, more accessible and friendly to human nature. The feature is built with the API (Application Programming Interface) of the payment app and CoRover’s voice-enabled generative AI model- BharatGPT, which supports voice inputs in Hindi, Gujarati and other common languages.
On-call works through voice calls whereas in-app can be utilized through any UPI app. Besides, features in on-call will guide a customer through IVR (Interactive Voice Response) while dialing a number. The facility integrated within in-app, will allow users to use their voice inputs on any UPI app for payments.