India preparing rollout of agentic payments on UPI, sources say

Business Recorder, citing three sources, reported that India is drafting a framework under which AI agents could make small digital payments without per-payment approval. The plan would run on the Unified Payments Interface, UPI, potentially making it one of the largest agentic payment networks globally. Leading payment firms have already launched similar frameworks in the United States, Europe, Singapore and Australia.

According to the sources, the Unified Agent Protocol could debut at Mumbai's Global Fintech Fest next week, and the first uses may be small, frequent buys such as groceries. It would build on two existing UPI features: UPI Circle, which gives an AI agent payment authority from a main account holder, and Reserve Pay, which earmarks funds for several debits. Banks currently limit such blocks to 10,000 rupees with validity of up to 90 days, though both limits could be revisited for agentic use.

The operator, NPCI, is expected to give merchants infrastructure they can integrate directly, while customers could set rules for when and how much agents pay, with spending caps, audit logs and identity checks. Visa and Mastercard are developing comparable agentic features for India, and Mastercard has already processed one authenticated agentic payment in New Delhi, which took place in June. Fintech firm Pine Labs introduced its P3P protocol earlier this year, allowing AI agents to process UPI transactions after a single upfront approval.