Hello, UPI: How Conversational UPI Works? All You Need To Know About Voice-Based Payments

Even as UPI transactions have been gaining significant growth, a new feature is soon going to be added to the UPI app — voice-enable UPI payments. through this, users will soon be able to send money to anyone by giving just voice commands, instead of text-based inputs.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das last week announced the launch of the conversational UPI at the ongoing Global Fintech Festival in Mumbai.

Hello! UPI: The Voice Command-Based UPI Payments Feature

The new voice command-based feature will make it convenient to transfer funds for Indians who are fluent in their native languages, providing significant benefits to senior citizens and digitally inexperienced individuals.

Through the new feature, the users will be able to make voice-enabled UPI payments via UPI Apps, telecom calls, and IoT devices in Hindi and English, and will soon be available in several other regional languages.

Users can simply give voice commands to transfer funds and input UPI PIN to complete the transaction.

NPCI has partnered with the Bhashini programme – AI4Bharat at IIT Madras, to co-develop Hindi and English payment language models.

In its white paper called ‘Conversational Payments on UPI: Unlocking new frontiers for next-generation payments’, the NPCI has said, “Voice search queries have grown at a rapid pace of 270 per cent per year.”

Conversational UPI: Two Modes

The NPCI said a user will no longer need to read or enter input manually to transact. They can instead speak to the AI-powered solution to complete payments. The solution will be available through two modes — on-call (through a voice call), and in-app (through any UPI app).

On-call: The on-call feature will let users dial a number where the user will be greeted and guided through IVR to complete the payment process.

In-app: The in-app facility will allow users to use their voice inputs on any UPI app to conduct a payment. This service will be layered on top of the current APK of UPI apps. Consequently, the device will recognize the verbal request, and respond to the request.

Conversational UPI: How It Works

1) Human speech is first converted from analog to digital form.

2) Automatic Speech Recognition: Voice input is converted to text

3) Machine translation NLP then captures users’ intent. Voice input is converted to English language

4) Text-to-Speech: Machine verifies users’ intent

5) Upon completion of the users’ intent, a voice output is shared with users.

If a user converses with the solution to check their account balance, the AI identifies the user’s intent through keywords, such as “balance” or “inquiry”, cross-references it against the data at the backend, and runs an algorithm to complete the user’s request. If the solution successfully fetches the user’s account balance, the algorithm at the backend becomes a template for the solution. With each iteration, the AI learns independently and becomes better at completing the user’s request.

BillPay Connect – Conversational Bill Payments

With BillPay Connect, Bharat BillPay introduces a nationalized number for bill payments across India. Customers can now conveniently fetch and pay their bills by sending a simple ‘Hi’ on the messaging app. Along with this, customers without smartphones or immediate mobile data access will be able to pay bills by giving a missed call.

Customers will receive an immediate call back for verification and payment authorisation. Additionally, BillPay Connect offers Voice Assisted Bill Payments facility. Customers can fetch and pay bills through voice commands on their smart home devices and get instant voice confirmation. Moreover, instant voice confirmations will be enabled for bill payments made at physical collection centers through payment soundbox devices.

This development aims to provide both customers and collection centers with added security and a sense of reassurance.