In a country where consumers juggle multiple credit cards, mobile wallets, and the ubiquitous UPI apps for everyday payments, an invention is promising to cut through the confusion. Dharmateja Priyadarshi Uddandarao, a data scientist by profession, has developed a "Generative Artificial Intelligence Driven Optimal Payment Card Selection System," an AI-powered system designed to instantly choose the best payment option for any transaction. This groundbreaking system, which includes a patented multi-interface payment terminal, could revolutionize how we pay, ensuring that each purchase automatically uses the optimal card, wallet, or UPI method. Dharmateja presented this concept in this March at "Finnovations '25", a closed fintech innovation event in Hyderabad. Industry insiders at the event were impressed by the idea's potential to help everyday consumers maximize rewards and savings. "The goal is to make financial decisions easier for everyone using AI," Mr. Uddandarao said in the event. "With so many people carrying multiple payment cards, it's easy to miss out on benefits. I wanted to let AI handle that complexity for them."
The Challenge of Complex Digital Payment Landscape
Digital payments landscape is booming - and complex. With over 109 million active credit cards in use as of early 2025 just in India, plus countless debit cards, mobile wallets, and the meteoric rise of UPI, consumers have no shortage of ways to pay. Yet this abundance of choice has created a new problem: how to know which payment option yields the best benefits in each situation. A recent nationwide survey highlighted that 70% of Indian credit card users fail to fully optimize their rewards, due in large part to fragmented information and the overwhelming complexity of reward structures. In other words, most people leave money on the table, missing out on potential cashback, discounts, or points because keeping track of each card's perks is too cumbersome. Mr. Uddandarao's innovation comes at a pivotal moment for India's digital payments ecosystem.
Digital wallets and UPI (Unified Payments Interface) add further layers to this puzzle. UPI, which enables instant bank-to-bank transfers via mobile apps, has become nearly ubiquitous, accounting for 85% of all digital transaction volume in India. Every neighborhood grocery shop now sports a QR code for UPI payments, and many consumers find it easier to scan-and-pay than swipe a card. In fact, more than half of daily transactions (55%) are still done via UPI or cash rather than cards, despite the latter's reward advantages. Millions of Indians struggle to choose the right payment method at the right time. Dharmateja's solution directly targets this pain point by automating the decision of "Which card or app should I use?" at the moment of purchase.
A GenAI-Powered Solution for Smarter Spending
Dharmateja's Generative AI-driven Optimal Payment Selection System is the first of its kind to bring advanced AI decision-making to everyday transactions. What exactly does it do? In simple terms, it acts as a personalized digital financial advisor, instantaneously evaluating all available payment options a consumer has like credit cards, debit cards, e-wallets, UPI apps, even reward vouchers and picking the one that offers the maximum benefit for that transaction. Crucially, it does this in real time, right as the payment is about to be made.
At the heart of the system is a generative artificial intelligence model trained on vast amounts of personalized financial data, reward program details, and user behavior patterns. By analyzing the context of a transaction, such as the merchant category, location, time of day, and even ongoing promotional offers for the account, the Statistical model can predict which payment method will yield the best financial outcome - whether that means maximum cashback, reward points, airline miles, or simply lower fees. This goes beyond static "if you're buying groceries use Card A" logic; the system employs context-aware intelligence that adapts to nuances. Is there a special 5% cashback on one wallet for weekend use? Did the user's bank offer extra points for using their Visa card at restaurants this month? The generative AI model can incorporate such context on the fly by weighted averages approach, something traditional rule-based recommendation engines struggle to do.
From Prototype to Patent: The Technology Behind the Idea
Behind the scenes, Mr. Uddandarao's system comprises both software intelligence and hardware ingenuity. The core AI algorithm, for which a utility patent is currently pending, is the brain. It crunches data about account level banks' reward programs, wallet cashbacks, and UPI-linked offers. But to bring this brain into the real world of point-of-sale transactions, This novel hardware device design: a Multi-Interface Payment Terminal, now secured under a design patent (Application No. 459553-001, granted May 2025). This sleek device is essentially a universal payment hub.
Equipped with multiple interfaces, the terminal can house a user's various card credentials digitally (much like a smart wallet) and present them as needed. It supports NFC tap, EMV chip, and magnetic stripe for card payments, while also featuring a built-in QR code scanner and display for UPI-based payments. The design emphasizes a compact, user-friendly form - imagine something like a portable card-swipe machine combined with a smartphone's QR scanner. This hardware allows the AI system to physically carry out its chosen payment method: if the AI picks a credit card, the terminal can emulate that card for a tap or swipe; if it picks UPI, it can instantly flash the appropriate QR code or interface with the UPI app.
Notably, the device's offline capability means it stores encrypted data about the user's payment instruments and a cache of AI decision rules locally. So even if you're in a basement store with no signal, you could plug your device into the merchant's POS or scan a QR, and it will still work out which card/account to use and complete the payment. Such resilience is vital in India, where patchy connectivity should never come between a customer and a successful transaction.