India’s Hitachi Unveils Country’s First UPI-ATM

Hitachi Payment Services has debuted what it calls a first-of-its-kind cardless ATM in India.

Announced Tuesday (Sept. 5), the company’s new offering is being rolled out in connection with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), connecting to that organization’s UPI payments system and eliminating the need for physical cards.

“The Hitachi Money Spot UPI ATM would provide customers a unified and secure user experience while offering them the convenience of card-less cash withdrawals,” the company said in a news release.

“Furthermore, it will drive financial inclusion by facilitating easy access to banking services in areas where traditional banking infrastructure and card penetration is limited.”

It’s that sort of obstacle that caused the Reserve Bank of India last month to debut a plan for “conversational” payments, allowing UPI users to make verbal transfer instructions on their phones, which will be processed using artificial intelligence (AI)-based speech recognition.

The central bank said users who lack internet access will be able to make transactions with the help of near field communication technology, allowing for “retail digital payments in situations where internet [or] telecom connectivity is weak or not available.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS Intelligence shows that UPI dominates the retail sector in India, with almost half of retail transactions — 48% — in the country happening via the platform.

It helps that Indian consumers were already comfortable with using their mobile phones to make bill, bank and merchant payments by the time UPI was introduced seven years ago. PYMNTS Intelligence found that consumers in India pay for 55% of retail purchases using digital wallets.

“As one might expect, given India’s trailblazing nature, local consumers use more digital shopping features than their counterparts in the United States or the United Kingdom,” PYMNTS wrote last week. “India’s millennial, bridge millennial and Generation Z shoppers have been the country’s early adopters of these digital-first shopping experiences.”

India also accounts for 46% of the world’s real-time payments, and carries out more digital transactions than any other place on in the world.

Hitachi’s ATM launch is happening at a time when automatic teller machines are growing more scarce, and in some cases being employed for new uses.

For example, a report in March by The Wall Street Journal said the machines are now being equipped with remote video conferencing capabilities, allowing customers to talk with a teller. without the bank having to maintain a neighborhood branch.