NPCI gearing up for UPI Meta rollout ahead of Apple Pay launch

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is gearing up the rollout of “UPI Meta” also known as “UPI Checkout” to make online UPI transactions faster and more seamless.

The move comes amid growing industry discussion around the possible entry of Apple Pay into India. The industry executives believe Apple Pay could appeal strongly to premium users with its frictionless biometric-based payment experience, especially when linked to credit cards.

UPI or the Unified Payments Interface was launched in India on 11 April 2016 by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) under RBI supervision.

Recent developments around UPI Meta have quickly drawn market attention, as the initiative could significantly reshape India’s online payments ecosystem. NPCI is reportedly planning to unveil the product at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai later this year.

The key concern of NPCI is the growing speed and convenience of credit card payments in online transactions. With tokenised cards and biometric authentication, users can now complete purchases within seconds.

“Several banks have already enabled biometric authentication for card payments. The experience is now almost as fast as UPI,” a senior executive associated with a UPI app said.

Industry experts also believe Apple Pay’s expected India launch has added urgency to NPCI’s plans.

UPI Meta is designed to make online UPI transactions simple. The feature would let users save their preferred UPI handle directly on ecommerce platforms such as Amazon, Blinkit, and Swiggy. Once selected, customers could complete payments using a UPI PIN or biometric authentication without having to repeatedly choose a payment app.

The goal is to create a one-click payment experience similar to credit cards.

NPCI believes this could help UPI compete better against cards for smaller-value online transactions.

“UPI Meta could make digital payments almost as seamless as scanning a QR code offline,” another executive involved in discussions said.