India Digital

MyUPI and UPI Tap & Pay: RBI's Two New UPI Features From GFF 2026, Explained

September 21, 2026·6 min read

At Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2026, held September 8-11 at Mumbai's Jio World Centre, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra launched two new additions to UPI: MyUPI, an AI-powered consolidated view of your UPI activity, and UPI Tap & Pay, a way to pay by tapping your phone that doesn't need mobile data. Both build directly on infrastructure NPCI already runs, but each solves a genuinely different everyday problem. Here's what actually changed.

MyUPI: one screen for UPI activity spread across banks and apps

If you use more than one UPI app — say GPay for daily spends and a bank's own app for AutoPay mandates — your transaction history and recurring payments are scattered across all of them, with no single place to see everything at once. MyUPI is built to fix exactly that: NPCI describes it as a consolidated dashboard showing UPI transactions and AutoPay mandates across banks and apps in one place, rather than requiring you to check each app separately.

The feature runs on FiMI, NPCI's own payments-focused small language model, which powers a 24/7 AI assistant built into MyUPI for account and transaction queries. Reported functionality also includes a "safety switch" and automated chargeback handling — real-time chargeback processing that gets triggered automatically for eligible failed or disputed transactions, rather than requiring a manual dispute filed separately with your bank.

UPI Tap & Pay: paying without scanning a QR code, or even having data

UPI Tap & Pay uses NFC (Near Field Communication) — the same short-range wireless tech behind contactless cards — to let you pay by tapping an NFC-enabled smartphone against a compatible point-of-sale terminal. The notable part isn't just skipping the QR-code scan: because the phone-to-terminal handshake happens over NFC directly, the transaction doesn't require an active mobile data or Wi-Fi connection on your phone the way a normal UPI QR payment does.

There's a built-in limit tied to convenience versus security: payments up to Rs 5,000 can go through PIN-less with just a tap, while anything above that threshold still requires entering your UPI PIN on the POS terminal — the same pattern contactless cards already use, applied to UPI.

Why NPCI is building this now

Both features respond to a real gap in how UPI has scaled: transaction volume keeps climbing (UPI processed roughly 752 million transactions worth close to Rs 29.82 lakh crore in August 2026 alone), but the everyday experience of using UPI across multiple apps, or paying somewhere with a shaky signal, hasn't kept pace with that growth. MyUPI and UPI Tap & Pay were announced alongside a broader batch of GFF 2026 infrastructure — including the AePS Three-Party Cash Deposit service and an open-source ATM, covered in our earlier explainer on that launch — all aimed at the same underlying goal Prime Minister Narendra Modi set out at the event: expanding UPI's reach and usability, not just its transaction count.

How this fits into UPI generally

Neither feature changes the underlying way UPI actually moves money between banks — see our explainer on how UPI actually works for that layer. What's new here sits on top: MyUPI is a better window into activity that already exists across apps, and Tap & Pay is a new way to trigger the same underlying UPI payment rails without a data connection or a QR code.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a new app to use MyUPI or UPI Tap & Pay?

Based on how these were announced, both are being rolled out as features integrated into NPCI's payments infrastructure and, over time, into existing UPI apps and NFC-enabled devices — rather than requiring a brand-new standalone app. Exact rollout timing to specific banks and UPI apps typically follows a phased pattern after a GFF-style launch, so check your existing UPI app for availability rather than assuming day-one access.

Is UPI Tap & Pay safe without a data connection?

The PIN-less limit is capped at Rs 5,000 specifically to bound the risk of a lost-or-stolen-phone tap payment, mirroring how contactless card limits already work in India. Any amount above that still requires your UPI PIN entered on the terminal, which is the same security model as a regular UPI payment, just delivered over NFC instead of a QR-code scan.

What is FiMI, the model MyUPI is built on?

FiMI is described as NPCI's own small language model, purpose-built for payments-related queries rather than a general-purpose chatbot — it's what powers MyUPI's 24/7 AI assistant for account and transaction questions, keeping that processing within NPCI's own payments infrastructure rather than a third-party AI provider.