India is set to come up with a framework that will allow Artifial Intelligence (AI) agents to make small digital payments without approval for every transaction.
The move will be potentially making UPI one of the world’s largest networks with agentic payments, Reuters reported citing sources.
Such payment framework is already in place in the US, Europe, Singapore and Australia.
Rollout on the popular Unified Payments Interface would also put India among the first countries to have a national infrastructure for agentic AI payments, the report said.
According to a 2025 IMF report, UPI, operated by the National Payments Corporation of India, is the world’s largest retail fast-payment system by transaction volume.
The uses cases will involve low-value, frequent purchases like groceries. E-commerce platforms are likely to capture early demands.
NPCI is said use cases are likely to eventually become more sophisticated, Reuters said citing the source.
How will AI agent work?
The AI agents will help to place orders based on sale offers and discounts. They will also make investments based on specified instructions around price thresholds.
The protocol is expected to draw on two existing UPI mechanisms – UPI Circle, which lets a primary account holder delegate payment authority to a secondary user such as an AI agent, and Reserve Pay, which lets customers block funds for multiple debits, the report said.
Banks currently cap such blocks at Rs 10,000 ($105.44) for up to 90 days, though this limit and its validity may be revisited for agentic use, the sources added.
UPI transactions near record-high
According to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the transactions through UPI were at Rs 29.8 lakh crore in August, near the record-high level.
UPI processed an average of 791 million transactions a day in August, with the average daily transaction value working out to Rs 96,205 crore.
