India and Japan used the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit in New Delhi to lock in new frameworks on economic security, AI cooperation, defence dialogue and clean energy, aiming to diversify supply chains, govern emerging technologies and deepen strategic coordination across the Indo-Pacific.
NPCI has partnered with HSBC India and J.P. Morgan Payments to enable real-time forex settlement for cross-border UPI transactions, aiming to improve transparency in international payments.
India’s household debt climbed to 45.5% of GDP by September 2025, driven by consumption-led borrowing and non-housing retail loans, even as Indian banks report multi-decade-low bad loans and stronger housing asset quality, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s latest Financial Stability Report.
NPCI is ramping up AI for UPI, from FiMI-powered support and multilingual, voice-based payments to a Nvidia-backed sovereign AI model aimed at fraud detection, risk assessment and scalable digital payment infrastructure for India.
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu says political corruption and illicit capital flows are inflating India’s real-estate prices, widening the gap between land values and per-capita income while raising living costs and pressuring family formation in urban states.
News
Meta is rolling out Pocket, a social app for AI-generated mini-games and interactive “gizmos” built from text prompts, extending its strategy of standalone generative AI apps alongside products like Vibes and leveraging technology from the Gizmo team acquired from Atma Sciences Inc.
The Indian government has sent notices to Telegram and Signal and pressed WhatsApp over username-based messaging, seeking details on safeguards against impersonation, fraud, phishing and identity spoofing amid rising cybercrime concerns.
Paytm has secured a payment institution licence for its Luxembourg-based unit, Paytm Europe Payments S.A., from the CSSF, enabling it to offer payment services across Europe as part of its international expansion, while the fintech reports its first full year of profitability in FY26 and deepens overseas bets in Brazil and NRI UPI corridors.
Airtel Money has started commercial operations as a Type-II non-deposit accepting NBFC after RBI registration, shifting from platform to balance-sheet lender and deepening its role in India’s digital lending market with a planned ₹20,000 crore capital infusion.
AI Trends
HCLTech has signed a $1.14 billion, multi-year deal with a Europe-based Fortune Global 50 company to build an AI-driven operating model for its global digital workplace and enterprise network, underscoring rising large-scale AI investments and the Indian IT major’s growing enterprise AI revenue and long-term transformation ambitions.
Spotlight
The Indian government is reviewing WhatsApp’s upcoming usernames feature over concerns about impersonation, fraud, and user safety before its rollout.
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