Payment revolution! Facial recognition, fingerprints to soon authenticate UPI payments, Aadhaar biometric data to be used: Report – The Times of India

Facial recognition and fingerprint authentication – these are the two new features that may be launched for payments made through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), according to a Reuters report.The National Payments Corporation of India, UPI’s operator, intends to display this biometric capability at Mumbai’s Global Fintech Festival, the report said.Users in India can authenticate payments through UPI using facial recognition and fingerprints beginning October 8, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the development quoted by Reuters.The verification process will utilise biometric information stored within the Government of India’s Aadhaar identification system, sources were quoted as saying.Following recent Reserve Bank of India directives allowing different authentication approaches, this change will deviate from the existing protocol that mandates numeric PIN validation for payments.NPCI’s UPI witnessed a reduction in transaction volume during September, whilst the transaction value showed a slight increase.NPCI data revealed that UPI handled 19.63 billion transactions in September, down from 20.01 billion in August. However, the total transaction value increased slightly to Rs 24.90 lakh crore from Rs 24.85 lakh crore in the previous month.Daily transactions averaged 654 million, with a daily value averaging Rs 82,991 crore.In comparison to the previous year, UPI demonstrated significant growth, with transaction volume increasing by 31% and value rising by 34%.September also saw declining trends across other digital payment platforms. The Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) recorded 394 million transactions valued at Rs 5.97 lakh crore, decreasing from August’s 477 million transactions worth Rs 5.98 lakh crore. The Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) transactions decreased to 106 million from 128 million.