The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) launched in India will also use facial recognition and fingerprint as a verification process, thus eliminating the need to key in the PIN. This upgrade is being developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The integration of the biometric authentication will help increase speeds and security among the users and target the existing capabilities of the smartphones. The option is likely to go live with banking app updates based on the finalised standards by NPCI.

Highlights:

• UPI payments will be authorized via Face ID or fingerprints instead of PINs.
• Biometric authentication aims to accelerate transaction speed.
• Security improves by reducing PIN exposure risks.
• The feature requires compatible smartphones and updated banking apps.
• NPCI is defining technical and security standards for integration.

The technology makes use of current biometrics authentication system available on smartphones (e.g., Face ID, fingerprint sensors). NPCI is working on strict security procedures to be put in place to enable a safe implementation. This is much simplified as users will log in payment on the registered devices with biometrics. This enhancement focuses on biometrics authentication in the existing UPI apps.

Unique biometric identifiers are an enormous improvement in making transactions more secure with the replacement of static PINs. Such a biometric measure of authentication avoids risks such as stealing or spying on PINs. It presents a greater level of protection of user funds than that which exists on the traditional PIN entry.

To achieve a high value of NPCI biometrics, banks and other service providers of payments should update the applications to ensure compliance with the biometrics authentication specified by NPCI. It is this technical integration system-wide that supports adoption. The effective implementation will streamline the UPI transactions by speeding up the process and increasing security level, promoting the digital payment infrastructure of India by standardizing the safety mechanics of the Indian Whois.