Bill Gate’s 'Grand Challenge' offers Rs 35 Lakh to winner for developing UPI app for feature phones

India’s smartphone market is growing rapidly and the country is also creating wave in digital payments. In India there are almost 50 crore feature phone users and to make the entire population transact digitally, these are potential users. United Payments Interface (UPI) has claimed to be clocking 100 crore transactions per month on smartphones. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) claims out of these transactions, less than 5 lakh are happening on feature phones via *99# service. The reason behind this is digital payments via feature phones is not easy and highly complicated for feature phone users where the experience is similar to using USSD codes.

To overcome this problem and facilitate feature phone users to transact digitally via UPI, NPCI has joined hands with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and CIIE.CO for global competition known as 'Grand Challenge Payments Using Feature Phones'. Start-ups and individuals can participate in this contest by developing digital payment solutions for feature phones.

According to the web portal for the challenge, participants will have to create payment solutions that can ensure easier user onboarding, better transaction experience, automated dispute resolution and high security standards, as well as any other relevant solution.

The last date of submission of entries is January 12, 2020. The shortlisted applicants will get the access to NPCI APIs which they can use to start building their solutions within the set technical parameters. From February to March the NPCI tech experts will continue to support the start-ups so that they can streamline their solutions. The final showcase and winner selection will happen on March 14, 2020.

Three winners will be chosen in the grand challenge, with the first place holder winning $50,000 (around Rs 36 lakh). The second place and third place holders will receive $30,000 (around Rs 21.53 lakh) and $ 20,000 (Rs 14.35 lakh), respectively. The start-ups will also develop the solution with NPCI and receive acceleration support from CIIE.CO.