New Delhi, Sept. 12 -- India's payments industry could be entering a new phase, with artificial intelligence beginning to play a bigger role in how payments are initiated, processed, and secured.

More than half (56%) of senior fintech and payments leaders surveyed by PwC India identified agentic payments and autonomous commerce as the most disruptive trend likely to shape the industry over the next five years.

The finding comes from PwC India's The Indian Payments Handbook: 2026-31, which describes the next stage of India's digital payments growth as "digital depth" - a shift from simply getting more people to use digital payments towards expanding how, where, and why they are used.

The report expects India's digital payment transactio...