New Delhi, Sept. 12 -- The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which introduced UPI Tap & Pay on point-of-sale terminals and MyUPI, an AI-powered customer support layer. Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra unveiled the two capabilities at GFF on September 10.

But taken together with other announcements and regulatory developments around the event, the direction is broader: India's financial infrastructure is moving from simply enabling digital transactions to building more control around them.

UPI has already made the smartphone the centre of digital payments. Tap & Pay changes that interaction at the physical checkout.

The feature allows users with an NFC-enabled smartphone to unlock the device and tap it against...