Oct 9 (Reuters) - India's payments authority National

Payments Corporation of India and fintech firm Razorpay have

collaborated with Microsoft ( MSFT )-backed OpenAI to launch

AI-driven payments on ChatGPT, the companies said on Thursday.

The initiative, currently in the pilot stage, will allow

users to make purchases on ChatGPT, facilitated by India's

homegrown payments network Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

The pilot will evaluate how the service can be expanded

across verticals and how UPI can be used to enable AI agents

with payment credentials "to autonomously complete transactions

on behalf of users in a safe, secure, and user-controlled

manner," the companies said in a statement.

Axis Bank and Airtel Payments Bank are the banking

partners for the pilot, and Tata Group-owned e-commerce platform

Bigbasket is among the first platforms to allow customers to

shop through ChatGPT.

"We're excited to work with NPCI and explore how we can

combine advanced AI with UPI, one of the world's most trusted

real-time payment networks, to unlock a new era of effortless

and secure commerce," Oliver Jay, managing director of

international strategy at OpenAI said.

UPI, India's leading fast payments network, processes over

20 billion transactions every month.