UPI-ATM turned any ATM into a cardless UPI counter for any bank's customer

On 5 September 2023, at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai, Hitachi Payment Services launched India's first UPI ATM as a white-label machine built with the National Payments Corporation of India, showcased before RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das and NPCI chief Dilip Asbe. The Hitachi Money Spot UPI ATM does one thing differently: it speaks UPI instead of demanding a card.

The flow borrows the merchant-counter experience: choose an amount from the denominations shown, scan the QR that appears with any UPI app, confirm with the UPI PIN. Because it rides the UPI switch, any bank's customer with any UPI app can withdraw, and the card — which could be skimmed, cloned or simply forgotten — disappears from the transaction entirely.

The idea then compounded at each Global Fintech Fest. In 2024 the RBI's deputy governor launched UPI Interoperable Cash Deposit, the mirror image: cardless deposits at any cash deposit machine. In 2026 NPCI demonstrated open-source Android ATMs that issue a personalized RuPay card or a merchant UPI QR on the spot, with nine banks and manufacturers including Hitachi, Perto and Vortex exploring deployments.

The ATM is just another UPI QR

The card was the weakest link: clonable at the reader and bound to one bank; UPI credentials live in the phone behind a PIN.

Interoperability came by default: one white-label machine serves all banks, so no bank had to buy or brand its own hardware.

The QR flow reuses merchant-payment muscle memory, so any UPI app user needs no training at the machine.

ATMs were underused real estate in a UPI-first economy; giving them a UPI face keeps cash access alive where branches closed.

Make old hardware speak the new rail, not bolt security onto the old one. An ATM that speaks UPI serves every bank's customer — open rails turn single-purpose machines fungible.

UPI cardless withdrawal and deposit now bookend the cash cycle without cards. At GFF 2026 NPCI pushed further, unveiling open-source Android ATMs positioned as instant card-issuing and merchant-QR points — ATMs recast as banking access terminals rather than cash machines — with State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank, Punjab National Bank and others among the nine banks assessing the solution alongside ATM makers Hitachi Payment Services, Perto India and Vortex Engineering.