NPCI Will Pay $50,000, To Ideas Who Will Enable UPI For Feature Phones

National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has announced a global competition to come up with a payment solution for feature phone users in which three winners will be selected. The NPCI has collaborated with CIIE.CO (Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship) and Bill and Melinda Gates' Foundation for this innovative competition.

In India, more than half a billion people use feature phones, however, their phones lack 'instant digital payment' like services that are applicable to smartphones. For instance, smartphone users in India have a Unified Payment Interface (UPI) app that facilitates immediate money transfer through mobile devices round the clock. Therefore, to make the services available to feature phone users as well, the NPCI, CIIE.CO and Bill and Melinda Gates' Foundation have collaborated and introduced the 'Grand Challenge' to allow innovators to provide payment solutions on feature phones.

Any start-ups or an individual who will come up with the best UPI based system on a feature phone will get a reward of $50,000 (INR 35,89,788.46) along with the golden opportunity to pilot the solution with NPCI. First runner-up will be getting prize money of $30,000(INR 21,51,295.43) and the second runner-up will be getting the price money of $20,000 (INR 14,28,587).

The last date to apply for this challenge is January 12, 2020. Applications will be received only through the online process. The collaborated committee will shortlist the most innovative start-up. Then the shortlisted ones will be provided access to NPCI APIs for them to understand the technical requirements and start building their respective solutions. You need not be a registered firm to apply. The selected start-ups will then be invited to attend an event in Mumbai on February 11, 2020.

The three winners will get the golden opportunity to interact with the members of CIIE.CO during the program. The CIIE.CO team can also facilitate an introduction to other investors on case to case basis. Winners will be evaluated for further acceleration or investment support via Bharat Inclusion Initiative.

This may be a great step ahead to go cashless. It is a golden opportunity for innovative start-ups to come ahead and interact with the start-up committees at the international level. Soon we can see India going cashless.

More details here - http://bit.ly/gc-website