Will NPCI implement biometric authentication to make UPI payments even more secure?
National Payments Corporation of India is the organization that oversees the payment system. According to sources, NPCI wants to enable biometric authentication for UPI transactions and is in talks with some startups for this.
Enabling biometrics will mean that consumers will be able to use their fingerprint on the Android platform and Face ID on the iPhone instead of using a four or six-digit UPI PIN for UPI transactions.
Tension increased regarding scam
The Reserve Bank of India is extremely concerned about UPI scams, so last week, the regulator published a framework for alternative payment authentication other than OTP for card transactions. The regulator gives priority to Behavioral Risk Patterns and biometrics over other methods to deal with these scams.
RBI had said in a statement, “It has been decided to publish a framework to take advantage of technological advancements and implement alternative authentication mechanisms for digital payment transactions.” However, NPCI has not yet finalized any partner for this initiative and currently the financial and legal terms of the partnership are under discussion.
More than 3 months
After NPCI appoints a technology service provider, the rollout of these initiatives is expected to take more than three months. During the initial stage, both PIN and biometric authentication are expected to co-exist.
A source says that NPCI is certain to implement biometric authentication in a few months, but the startup partner has not been decided yet. Since RBI is keen to find alternative methods as soon as possible to reduce fraud cases, NPCI may accelerate this scheme. UPI is the most popular method of digital payment in the country. 80% of online transactions are done through it.
