PayU rolls out AI voice assistant to streamline merchant onboarding

Digital payments firm PayU has launched an AI-powered outbound voice call assistant to simplify merchant onboarding, marking a step forward in its push to become an AI-native platform across the merchant lifecycle.

Merchant onboarding in the payments ecosystem has long been a resource-heavy process, involving extensive documentation, KYC checks and multiple activation steps. These complexities often result in delays and drop-offs, especially among small businesses with limited bandwidth. PayU’s new solution aims to address these bottlenecks through automation and conversational AI.

The voice assistant proactively reaches out to merchant leads—particularly those who have not initiated onboarding—and engages them in natural language conversations in English and Hindi. It guides prospective merchants through key onboarding steps while collecting critical business information such as website details, revenue expectations and business category.

According to the company, the system is designed to improve lead qualification, accelerate verification timelines and reduce onboarding abandonment rates. It can also route merchants to relevant support channels, including escalation to human account managers where necessary.

“We’re entering an era where voice AI is becoming a core driver of how businesses operate and grow,” said Manas Mishra, Chief Product Officer at PayU and Wibmo. “At PayU, we are steadily building an AI-native platform where merchants remain at the center of every innovation.”
The deployment reflects a broader industry shift towards embedding AI across operational workflows such as customer acquisition, onboarding and support. Voice-led interfaces are gaining traction in markets like India, where they can help bridge language, literacy and access gaps while improving user engagement.

PayU said it plans to extend the use of voice AI across additional merchant touchpoints, including KYC drop-off recovery, activation workflows, product discovery and cross-sell initiatives. The company is also looking to scale the solution across multiple Indian languages to widen its merchant reach.

The move comes amid intensifying competition in the digital payments space, where fintech firms are increasingly leveraging AI to reduce operational costs while enhancing user experience. Indian fintechs such as Razorpay and Pine Labs have been investing in automation and AI-led merchant services, while PhonePe has been expanding its merchant ecosystem with technology-led onboarding and support tools.

Globally, companies like Stripe and Square are also integrating AI across onboarding, fraud detection and customer engagement, underscoring a wider shift towards intelligent, automated fintech platforms.