GenWise aims to empower India’s elderly population with the speed and convenience of UPI digital payments in its app-based online club for senior citizens.
GenWise, an innovative platform providing various services and resources tailored to older adults’ needs, has launched UPI payments on its club app.
Pursuing its mission to help the elderly to become digitally independent, “the largest Online Club for Indian Elders” introduced this omnipresent payment method in a user-friendly way. Catering to the needs and challenges faced by over 250 million Indian elders, GenWise developed a customised UPI solution in collaboration with Axis Bank. It has a simple user interface, enhanced security, cyber fraud awareness features, geo-fencing, biometric authentication, and audio-based navigation.
The new tool allows one to scan QR codes and make payments while shopping, transfer money to friends and family, pay utility bills, and perform other financial operations. In-built services UPI Lite and Mobile Number Mapper enable elders to make transactions without sharing personal bank details or primary phone numbers to diminish the chances of privacy compromise.
UPI is widely used at physical retail stores, supermarkets, restaurants, and small shops and is accepted by most e-commerce platforms and online retailers in India. The payment system has become essential for daily transactions in the country and is now used by over 400 million unique users. It handled over 16.5 billion transactions in October alone, reflecting its widespread adoption and convenience. According to the latest data, online and offline UPI transactions in India grew by 52% year-on-year, reaching 78.97 billion in the first half of 2024.
Despite its great popularity and extensive reach, UPI is still not used by many Indian elders due to their fear of the unknown and the complex interfaces of some payment apps. Nevertheless, GenWise founder Nehul Malhotra hopes to engage 20 million senior citizens within the next two years. The company plans some nationwide awareness sessions to expand the reach of UPI among the target demographic.
GenWise app has a lot of useful features for Indian elders besides digital payments. It offers community events and online communication, calls with screen sharing for contacting family and friends, one-click location sharing, creation of personalised greetings, entertaining videos, emotional support service, astrologers’ advice, converting phone to a passbook, AI Friend virtual assistant, personal education assistant, medicine reminder, etc.
The share and size of the elderly population in India is increasing over time. While in 2023, around 10% of Indians belonged to the 60+ age group, the number is expected to double by 2050. However, the number of fintech and other tech solutions designed for this age cohort is scarce. Therefore, senior citizens in the country are often underserved or even financially excluded.
