India’s payments revolution is entering a new chapter, where the convenience of digital transactions meets the complexities of security, scale, and customer experience. As UPI matures, cards, e-mandates, and digital wallets are expanding their role, while enterprises grapple with fraud risks and the demand for seamless omnichannel journeys. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are emerging as powerful tools to detect fraud in real time without adding friction for users. In this exclusive conversation with CIO&leader, Ramkumar Subbaraj, Co-Founder and CTO at Phicommerce, shares his perspective on how businesses can future-proof payment ecosystems while keeping simplicity at the center.
Co-Founder and CTO
Phicommerce.
CIO&Leader: What are the most promising applications of AI and machine learning in combating financial fraud, and how can they be scaled without creating friction for customers?
Ramkumar Subbaraj: Risk-based authentication, combined with behavioral pattern analysis, is something that can be effective for fraud detection & prevention. These can be employed in near-real time or in real time without friction for customers. These engines can work in conjunction with traditional rule-based fraud systems.
CIO&Leader: Based on recent payment data across sectors such as retail, education, and government, what trends do you see in how Indians are paying today, beyond the growth story of UPI?
Ramkumar Subbaraj: India’s payment story is widening beyond UPI. Cards remain strong—credit cards are the go-to for online spending, while debit cards dominate at point-of-sale (PoS) transactions. We’re also seeing recurring payments shift to UPI Autopay and e-mandates, with education fees, insurance, and OTT subscriptions leading adoption. Transit and tolls are going fully digital. The significant shift is not just an increase in digital payments, but also smaller, more frequent, and more automated transactions becoming part of daily life.
CIO&Leader: How are enterprises rethinking “omnichannel payments,” and what does a truly seamless experience across PoS, online, and mobile channels look like in practice?
Ramkumar Subbaraj: Enterprises are moving from managing separate payment silos to offering a single, unified experience. A customer can save payment details once and use them across the web, app, and in-store without friction. Journeys are becoming channel-fluid—starting online and completing in-store, or paying by link from a call centre. SoftPOS and QR codes are expanding acceptance everywhere, while intelligent routing ensures higher success rates and lower costs. For businesses, the real value lies in a consolidated ledger for all channels—settlement, reconciliation, and refunds—so the customer sees simplicity and the enterprise gains efficiency.
CIO&Leader: As enterprises juggle multiple payment methods and platforms, what best practices should they adopt to ensure secure, efficient, and future-proof integrations?
Ramkumar Subbaraj: To the extent possible, avoid direct point-to-point integration from your core engine. Have an integration/routing/orchestration layer. Do all integrations at this integration/routing layer. In this way, one can handle security at a single layer, ease compliance, observability & monitoring becomes easier, and any new integrations or changes do not affect the core engine.
CIO&Leader: Do you see centralised fraud risk indicators — combining telecom, banking, and consumer data — becoming a standard in payment security architectures? What challenges stand in the way of this vision?
Ramkumar Subbaraj: Yes, once businesses see the value these systems offer and improve at what they intend to do, they will become a standard offering in payment security. Challenges typically involve the near real-time sharing of financial & consumer data between ecosystems & standardization of data. These systems function well only when data becomes available from all related ecosystems in the manner and at the time it requires.