Flipkart, Axis Bank, and PayU Deploy Biometric Card Authentication to Replace SMS OTPs

Flipkart, Axis Bank, and PayU have jointly deployed a biometric authentication system for card payments that allows Axis Bank cardholders making purchases on Flipkart to approve transactions using fingerprint or Face ID on Android or iOS devices, replacing the traditional SMS one-time password. The rollout was reported in early May 2026.

Under the architecture, Flipkart provides the merchant-side integration and checkout experience; PayU manages backend payment processing and authentication orchestration; and Axis Bank handles issuer-level biometric verification via Wibmo, its payments technology subsidiary. The system is device-bound, tying biometric authentication to the user’s registered handset. This design substantially reduces the risk of SIM-swap fraud and removes dependency on mobile network availability for OTP delivery.

The Flipkart and Axis Bank deployment follows India’s first biometric authentication for e-commerce card payments, which Federal Bank pioneered with M2P and MinkasuPay across a smaller merchant set. The current rollout responds directly to the Reserve Bank of India’s mandate for flexible two-factor authentication, which gave banks and payment providers regulatory clearance to replace SMS OTPs with biometric verification.

Gaurav Arora, Vice President for Payments and SuperCoins at Flipkart, said the integration “reflects our commitment to building safety into consumer payments while delivering a seamless experience.” Arnika Dixit, President and Head of Cards, Payments and Wealth Management at Axis Bank, said: “Customers today expect digital payments to be not only safe but effortless, and biometric authentication delivers exactly that.”

The card-based deployment complements India’s Aadhaar-linked biometric UPI payments initiative, extending biometric authentication across an additional payment rail.

India’s digital payment fraud exceeded INR 1,400 crore in FY2024, a fivefold increase that the Reserve Bank of India cited when issuing its 2025 guidelines encouraging migration from OTP-based to biometric and risk-based verification systems. The RBI guidelines also highlighted the structural vulnerability of SMS delivery, which can be intercepted through SIM-swap fraud and is unreliable in areas with weak network coverage. Other Indian biometric payment deployments to date have largely run on the UPI rail and capped transactions at INR 5,000, leaving open-loop card payments as the primary venue for higher-value biometric authentication. Wibmo, as the issuer-side verification engine, handles biometric validation at the Axis Bank level for the card infrastructure deployment.

Sources: BusinessToday, BusinessToday, CRN Asia