The Reserve Bank of India has issued a strong warning against stablecoins, stating that virtual digital assets fail key tests of money and pose significant financial stability risks. According to the RBI's latest Payments Systems Report, stablecoins do not pass the core tests of singleness, elasticity and integrity of payments. The central bank emphasized that Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) instead offers similar efficiencies without the risks associated with stablecoins. The RBI noted that traditional monetary systems rest on a two-tier banking system where central bank money-based settlement forms the foundation, ensuring singleness of money with various forms convertible at par.
Viyona Fintech in Hyderabad has achieved NPCI certification for its technology and certification framework across multiple critical payment infrastructure layers. According to The Hindu BusinessLine, the company has secured certification for UPI Acquirer, UPI Issuer, IMPS, and Interoperable Banking Mobile Banking (IBMB) integrations. With this milestone, Viyona joins a select group of fintech infrastructure players building end-to-end payment orchestration capabilities aligned with National Payments Corporation of India standards.
The completion of both UPI Acquirer and UPI Issuer capabilities gives Viyona the ability to participate across multiple layers of the UPI ecosystem from merchant acceptance and QR acquiring to customer-side issuance infrastructure. As reported by The Hindu BusinessLine, Ravikanth Yarlagadda, Chairman of Viyona Infotech, noted that the addition of IMPS and IBMB capabilities expands the company's service portfolio across interoperable mobile banking, real-time fund transfers, merchant settlement systems, and rural banking use cases. This comprehensive certification positions Viyona to serve diverse payment ecosystem needs with certified infrastructure.
According to the RBI's latest Payments Systems Report, UPI's share of total payments volume had grown to 85.5 per cent in the second half of 2025 (H2 2025). The total retail payments volume grew to 142.25 billion in H2 2025, a 28 per cent increase from 111.16 billion in H2 2024. Prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) stood at 3.6 per cent, followed by card payments at 2.6 per cent. While credit cards, debit cards, PPI wallets, and UPI QR codes exhibit an upward trend, PPI cards, PoS terminals, bank-owned ATMs, CRMs, and micro ATMs registered a decline during the six-month period.
Fintech companies are increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence to personalise customer experiences, strengthen fraud detection systems and improve operational efficiency. According to reports from The Hindu BusinessLine, executives across lending, wealthtech and payments start-ups are deploying AI across underwriting, customer support, compliance monitoring, cybersecurity and product discovery. The sector is moving beyond basic automation and chatbots toward more intelligent financial services infrastructure, with AI now being deployed across underwriting, customer support, compliance monitoring, cybersecurity and product discovery, while also opening up new monetisation opportunities.
FYERS has launched FIA, its AI-powered assistant, which helps users analyse markets, charts, portfolios, IPOs and options trading through natural language interactions. As reported by The Hindu BusinessLine, Yashas Khoday, Cofounder and Chief Product Officer at FYERS, explained that the assistant does not provide trading tips or buy-sell recommendations but instead offers contextual analysis tailored to each trader's unique approach. The company uses machine learning systems to monitor transactions and login behaviour in real time to identify fraud signals and unusual activity, while also automating compliance workflows and improving internal engineering productivity.
At lending platform Fibe, AI is being used across underwriting, customer journeys, fraud detection and marketing to create more contextual and intuitive financial experiences. According to Anil Sinha, chief technology officer at Fibe, as reported by The Hindu BusinessLine, AI is helping fintech move away from one-size-fits-all financial products toward more contextual, intuitive, and personalised consumer experiences. The company has deployed AI-powered interfaces such as Fiora to help users navigate financial products conversationally, while internally built AI agents assist teams by handling repetitive operational tasks. Sinha added that AI could reshape how customers discover financial products in the future, with users increasingly accessing services through conversational AI platforms rather than standalone apps.
For cross-border fintech startup Belong, AI is proving particularly useful in customer support and engineering productivity. As reported by The Hindu BusinessLine, the company said an AI bot currently handles 60-70% of incoming customer queries, allowing a two-member support team to manage a user base of nearly 25,000 NRIs. Ankur Choudhary, cofounder and chief executive of Belong, noted that NRI support is genuinely complex, with questions spanning FEMA, cross-border taxation, repatriation rules, and jurisdiction-specific compliance. The company's AI implementation demonstrates how fintechs are leveraging AI to handle complex customer support scenarios while maintaining personalised service delivery.
