NPCI's Hello UPI let feature-phone users pay by voice, no data needed

India's UPI was a smartphone product: it required an app, internet and reading a screen, which excluded many Indians on feature phones and low-literacy users. In September 2023 RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das launched 'Hello! UPI' at the Global Fintech Fest to close that gap.

The feature makes UPI conversational. A user says 'Hello <app name>' to wake the assistant, then pays a saved contact, scans a QR, checks a balance or gets onboarding help by voice. On-call mode runs through an IVR on the existing UPI 123Pay telephony rails, so a feature phone with no internet can transact; the UPI PIN, entered on the keypad, authorises each payment.

NPCI's October 2023 guidelines set the rules: on-call payments were capped at ₹1,000 per transaction and five per day, channels were tagged as in-app, on-call or IoT, and members had to enable the feature by March 31, 2024. English and Hindi launched first, with about a dozen regional languages following.

The design lowered barriers instead of adding hardware: the phone call is the channel, the PIN is the security, and voice navigation helps senior citizens, low-literacy users and the visually impaired — financial inclusion built on infrastructure people already have.