India Plans Registry for AI Agents on UPI

India’s National Payments Corporation of India is developing a registry to verify and monitor artificial-intelligence agents that make payments through the Unified Payments Interface as the country prepares for agentic transactions. The planned Unified Agentic Protocol would assign agents distinct identities and track their authorization, spending limits and verification credentials, while allowing participating banks to revoke access if suspicious activity is detected. The initial focus is expected to be small, frequent purchases such as groceries, with possible expansion to cards, bill payments and more complex transactions. The system is intended to preserve accountability as software acts on users’ behalf, but questions about consent, errors, unauthorized payments and liability remain unresolved.