India is to roll out ways of making voice-based and offline digital payments to expand the country’s fast-growing digital infrastructure and close a yawning divide between rural and urban areas. 

The growth of Universal Payments Interface (UPI), a digital payments system, is integral to PM Narendra Modi’s ambitions to build out India’s digital infrastructure and bring the world’s most populous country online. 

Since UPI was launched in 2016, digital transactions have taken off. About 350 mn people now use UPI for goods and services or to transfer money instantly. The system recorded almost ten bn transactions in July, more than 50 per cent higher than last year. 

 But its penetration into India’s poorer rural areas has been hampered by sparse internet access and lower literacy levels outside urban areas. 

 The RBI recently announced a plan for conversation payments to address this gap. With these features, users can soon ask an AI-powered system to make payments for them. However, further details on this functionality haven’t been disclosed yet. The feature will initially be available in Hindi and English. 

 Users will also be able to make transactions without the internet by using “near field communication” technology, a system widespread in contactless card transactions that uses a connection between close-by phones. This will “enable retail digital payments where internet or telecom connectivity is weak or unavailable. 

 In a statement to the Financial Times, Dilip Asbe, head of the National Payments Corporation of India, the state-backed entity which manages UPI, stated that the measures — which will be introduced in the coming months — will facilitate digital payments outside India’s largest cities, where growth has been concentrated. 

 He added that they help us expand and create a new use case to reach out to more users and merchants.