RBI Advocates for Unified Payment Mandate Viewing System to Enhance Consumer Protection
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is actively encouraging the payments industry to transition towards an interoperable framework. This initiative aims to empower customers by enabling them to view all mandates across various payment instruments, including UPI and credit cards, through a single, consolidated interface. The central bank positions this move as a crucial customer protection measure, especially as subscription-based services proliferate, making it increasingly challenging for users to monitor recurring financial outflows.
Growing Need for Mandate Visibility Across Platforms
Speaking at an event organized by the Merchant Payments Alliance of India, RBI executive director P Vasudevan highlighted the scale of the issue. In UPI alone, approximately 87 crore mandates, or standing instructions for recurring payments, were created in February 2026. While UPI currently offers a facility for users to view mandates in one place, Vasudevan emphasized the necessity of extending such visibility across all payment instruments and platforms.
"I might have created mandates across aggregators, can I get a bird's eye view? Imagine I also get a bird's eye view across systems. I might have done something on UPI, I might have done something on say Mastercard, Visa. Can I get a bird's eye view in one place so that I can easily continue or not?" said Vasudevan, underscoring the user experience challenges.
Digital Payments Intelligence Platform and AI Initiatives
The RBI is developing a Digital Payments Intelligence Platform designed to generate real-time risk scores for transactions, enhancing security and fraud detection. Additionally, the bank is expanding the digital public infrastructure stack across payments, lending, and identity domains. This includes initiatives like the Unified Lending Interface and exploring tokenisation beyond cards into areas such as KYC and financial instruments.
Among other advancements, the RBI is working on AI-driven systems, including UPI Help for automated grievance handling and MuleHunter for identifying mule accounts. Vasudevan stressed that interoperability should remain the "mool mantra" of the payments ecosystem. He urged industry participants to integrate disparate systems to deliver a seamless customer experience, rather than forcing users to navigate multiple platforms for mandates, subscriptions, and grievances.
Context-Aware AI and Fraud Detection Improvements
The regulator is also promoting deeper integration of artificial intelligence across the payments ecosystem. However, Vasudevan cautioned against mechanical or rule-based deployments that could inadvertently increase friction. He advocated for context-aware systems that improve fraud detection and overall transaction security.
This push from the RBI comes amid rapid growth in digital payments and a significant shift towards merchant payments, with UPI increasingly being utilized for a wide range of transactions. The initiative reflects the central bank's commitment to fostering a more transparent, secure, and user-friendly digital payments environment in India.
