India, 27th of September, 2021: Infobip, in omnichannel engagement, recently announced as the joint runners-up for the Global level Hackathon – the NPCI PayAuth Challenge. The event was held by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The first phase of the competition was launched by NPCI on 9th February 2021, in association with APIX, the world’s first cross-border, open-architecture API marketplace and sandbox platform.
The PayAuth Hackathon was held to find smart alternative solutions for authorizing UPI (Unified Payments Interface) transactions. Essentially, it sought to explore and provide a platform for innovation in UPI by factoring in the practicability of products and solutions that utilize technologies like biometrics and facial recognition. The end goal was to make authenticating and authorizing transactions on the UPI platform more secure, seamless, and easy to use.
This challenge received more than 100 entries. After several rounds of review, around 19 participants were shortlisted for an internal screening round. Out of which, a few participants were selected to present their solutions during the final round conducted on 17th April 2021. The final winners were revealed by NPCI in August 2021.
“It’s an honor to have Mobile Identity & biometrics solutions among the top solutions for payment verification and authorization in India!” says Harsha Solanki, Managing Director, Infobip India. “We intend on providing risk-based user confirmation and user-friendly transaction authorization for businesses across the country, helping to build a trusted, more secure customer ecosystem!” she adds.
This challenge by NPCI sought to provide an impetus for FinTech’s, solution providers, and developers to submit unique solutions that can simplify authorization by integrating their innovative technology into UPI. The challenge also wanted to test the feasibility of alternative payment authentication mechanisms and assess the consequent user behavior for these authentication mechanisms.
The future of digital monetary transactions will be driven by UPI, which is already widely used by customers who link their bank accounts to mobile applications. Innovations in UPI can further enable customers to make easy, safe, and instant money transfers online, do hassle-free online shopping and be worry-free of scams and online phishing. More accessible alternatives in UPI can therefore encourage the shift to digital payment systems faster to help drive the goal of a truly digital India.