EnKash Introduces UPI‑Enabled Meal Card

EnKash, described as India’s leading business payments and spend‑management platform, issued a press release on 22 July 2026 announcing the launch of a UPI‑based Meal Card. The new card allows employees to make payments directly from their meal‑allowance balance by scanning eligible UPI QR codes at food‑service and grocery merchants, making EnKash the first provider in India to enable UPI payments from a meal‑benefit balance.

The solution combines several features: UPI‑based scan‑and‑pay convenience, the extensive acceptance infrastructure of RuPay, merchant‑category‑based spending controls, both physical and virtual meal cards, real‑time transaction visibility, and a centralized platform for card issuance, loading and management by employers. Employers can issue cards, load balances, set spending controls, and track transactions through this unified interface, ensuring that meal balances are used only for eligible expenses.

Under the revised income‑tax reforms, eligible meal benefits of up to ₹200 per meal are permissible under both the old and new tax regimes, subject to prescribed conditions. Consequently, an employee can receive up to ₹1,05,600 annually as a tax‑free meal benefit.

"Employee benefits should be as seamless as everyday payments. By bringing UPI to meal benefits, we're enabling employees to pay the way they already do while helping employers deliver a simpler and more digital‑first experience," said Priya Sharma, Head of Product at EnKash. She added that the launch merges the power of RuPay, the familiarity of UPI, and the tax efficiency of meal benefits, reflecting the strength of EnKash’s payments stack across its prepaid‑payment‑instrument (PPI) products.

The UPI‑enabled Meal Card is supported by EnKash’s existing payments and prepaid infrastructure. The company already provides UPI capabilities across its prepaid products and offers a broader payments suite that includes prepaid cards, employee benefits, expense management, petty cash, corporate payments, a payment gateway, and rewards.

EnKash holds Payment Aggregator (PA), Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI), and Bharat Connect (BBPOU) licences, partners with leading banks and networks such as NPCI and Visa, and serves more than 5,000 businesses. The platform is backed by $23 million in funding.

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