During the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2026, held September 8-11 at Mumbai’s Jio World Centre, Indian and global fintech companies launched several new products focused on agentic AI, cross-border payments, and merchant credit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the fest and outlined four industry goals: expanding UPI’s global reach, extending fintech into pensions and insurance, building a Fintech Consumer Protection Index, and recognising agentic AI, tokenisation, and quantum computing as the next frontier.
Below is a summary of these launches.
NPCI / DFS
Department of Financial Services (DFS) Secretary Sanjay Lohiya introduced open-source Android ATMs that serve as digital banking units. These ATMs can open accounts, process loan applications, accept cheque deposits, and instantly issue RuPay cards and merchant UPI QR codes, reducing onboarding time from weeks to minutes. Nine lenders, including State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, and Slice Small Finance Bank, are piloting the machines with manufacturers Hitachi Payment Services, Perto India, and Vortex Engineering.
NPCI also launched AiNxt, an open-source agentic AI platform with components including AiNxt OS, Code, CLI, and Enterprise, designed for building and deploying AI agents under a “bring your own models” framework. NPCI introduced AtOM, an orchestration platform that creates signed, machine-readable audit trails for UPI integration and partner onboarding. A separate Unified Agent Protocol, which will allow AI agents to execute small payments without user authorisation for each transaction, is expected to be announced later in the event.
RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra launched two new UPI features at GFF 2026: MyUPI and UPI Tap & Pay. MyUPI, which is built on NPCI’s payments-focused small language model FiMI, provides users with a consolidated view of UPI transactions and AutoPay mandates across banks and UPI apps.
NPCI also launched UPI Tap & Pay, which allows users to make payments by tapping an NFC-enabled smartphone on a compatible POS terminal without requiring an internet connection on the phone. Users can make PIN-less transactions of up to Rs 5,000, while transactions above that amount require a UPI PIN to be entered on the POS terminal.
PhonePe launches cardless payment solutions
PhonePe has partnered with Visa to introduce three cardless payment features. Tap to Pay allows Android users to tokenise Visa cards and make payments by tapping their phones at compatible POS terminals, with phased rollout beginning September 9. Cross Border Scan to Pay enables users to scan Visa QR codes in 14 markets, including Singapore, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea. Smart Accept allows small merchants to accept contactless card payments directly on their smartphones, eliminating the need for a separate POS device. These features operate on Visa’s card network, separate from India’s UPI International system, which currently covers 11 countries.
BharatPe
BharatPe has launched an agentic AI assistant for merchants, built on Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and integrated into its business app. The assistant can access a merchant’s business and transaction history and operate across more than 60 internal systems in the merchant’s preferred language. Additionally, BharatPe introduced Credit Coach, which creates personalised videos featuring a digital avatar of former cricketer Rohit Sharma to promote credit awareness among users.
Jio Payment Solutions
Jio Financial Services’ payments division has partnered with Citi to launch a cross-border payments service. This service enables Indian businesses to accept international payments and aims to reduce settlement times for cross-border transactions.
Pine Labs
Pine Labs partnered with L&T Finance to introduce an agentic commerce feature to the PLANET app, using Pine Labs’ P3P protocol and the Grantex protocol. Initially, this feature enables an AI agent to book flights within user-defined spending limits, without requiring manual intervention.
Amazon Pay
Amazon Pay and Kotak Mahindra Bank have launched a co-branded credit card for Amazon Business merchants. The card offers cashback on business expenses, an interest-free credit period, and AWS cloud credit benefits.
Yubi
Yubi launched Pye, a retail lending platform that routes borrower applications for expenses such as weddings, education, or medical emergencies to a network of lending partners, matching applicants by profile and loan requirement. The company also introduced TopScore, a consumer credit-health app that displays credit scores and explanations in 10 languages.
Yes Bank, Open launch AI system for recurring payments
Yes Bank and fintech company Open have launched i-Mandate, an AI-based system designed to detect potential failures in recurring payments before debits occur. The system analyses historical account activity and payment signals to identify payments at risk of failure. It then contacts borrowers and offers authorised options, including changing the payment date, switching the payment account, or selecting an alternative payment method.
According to the company, the system uses voice and WhatsApp-based AI agents that support 22 languages. It is also integrated with Open’s lending platform, Arc. This product demonstrates the growing use of AI in payments, where automated systems not only respond to customers but also initiate actions based on predicted payment behavior.
Mahindra Finance expands use of Sarvam’s Voice AI
Mahindra Finance has expanded its partnership with Indian AI company Sarvam to deploy voice-based AI systems across its sales, collections and employee operations in rural and semi-urban markets.
Mahindra Finance has developed voice agents with Sarvam’s models that support 12 Indian languages. These agents provide payment reminders, assist with debt collection, and cross-sell vehicle, SME, and housing loans. The AI systems are integrated with Mahindra Finance’s customer relationship management and loan-servicing platforms.
Navi, IndusInd Bank partner on UPI infrastructure
Navi has partnered with IndusInd Bank to add a new UPI payment switch to its payments infrastructure. This partnership aligns with industry efforts to build infrastructure that can support growing UPI transaction volumes.
Gnani AI expands Agentic AI platform to financial institutions
Bengaluru-based Gnani AI has expanded its Artha AI platform for use by banks, financial services companies and insurers. The company stated that Artha offers over 200 pre-built workflows for operations including payment reconciliation, underwriting, loan processing, and risk management.
The platform leverages Gnani’s Evon language models and Plexus agentic AI system. It can be deployed on private cloud infrastructure or on-premises, enabling financial institutions to maintain greater control over their data. One application is automating loan assessment. The system processes bank statements, GST filings, identity documents, and Account Aggregator data, compares information across these sources, and flags inconsistencies.
PayU expands AI-powered fraud protection for cross-border payments
PayU has launched Fraud Liability Protect (FLP), an AI-powered tool designed to help Indian merchants accepting international card payments reduce fraud. FLP uses machine learning to analyse transaction and behavioral signals, applying varying authentication levels based on risk.
According to PayU, merchants using FLP have seen a 4-5% increase in international card payment success rates and reduced fraud exposure. One online travel merchant reported a 14% rise in payment success rates and an 83% drop in its fraud-to-sales ratio. Zomato is among its adopters. This launch coincides with PayU, Paytm, Razorpay, Juspay, and Skydo receiving cross-border payment aggregator licenses from the Reserve Bank of India, enabling them to facilitate payments between Indian merchants and overseas customers.
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