UPI

In a Q&A, the company's CEO dwells on the huge opportunity the payments business provides in India and why there is a sudden rush to acquire an aggregator licence

This new feature could be seen as a substitute for credit card, which has limited reach, experts say

The Reserve Bank on Thursday proposed to expand the scope of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) by including pre-sanctioned credit lines at banks within the ambit of the popular payment platform. UPI is a robust payment platform supporting an array of features. Presently it handles 75 per cent of the retail digital payments volume in India. The UPI system has been leveraged to develop products and features aligned to India's payments digitisation goals, said RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das while announcing the bi-monthly monetary policy. "It is now proposed to expand the scope of UPI by enabling transfer to / from pre-sanctioned credit lines at banks, in addition to deposit accounts," he said. In other words, UPI network will facilitate payments financed by credit from banks. This can reduce the cost of such offerings and help in the development of unique products for Indian markets. At present, UPI transactions are enabled between deposit accounts at banks, sometimes intermediated

According to Das, the UPI has transformed retail payments in India and its robustness has been leveraged to develop new products and features from time to time

Goa's Thomas Cook Airport counters will enable foreigners from G20 countries and NRIs to make UPI eligible Indian Rupee transactions upon arrival

Surge in digital payments in the past few years has highlighted the need for banks to raise the capacity of their digital platforms

Earlier in the day some customers complained in social media that they were unable to access net banking, Unified Payment Interface (UPI) of SBI

The government may consider a 0.3 per cent uniform digital payment facilitation fee to fund the infrastructure required for such transactions and also to ensure financial viability of the UPI payment system, suggested a study by IIT Bombay. The facilitation fee of 0.3 per cent can generate around Rs 5,000 crore in 2023-24, said the study titled 'Charges for PPI-based UPI payments--The Deception'. The study, which analyses the impact of the decision of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to introduce interchange fee on payments through mobile wallets, argued that the payments received by merchants should remain 'unpolluted' whether they are from UPI directly or through prepaid e-wallets. The NPCI, with effect from April 1, 2023 introduced an interchange fee of 1.1 per cent on transaction amount for usage of prepaid payment instruments for making payments through UPI to merchants. These will apply on prepaid wallet-based UPI merchant transactions. Rather than thrusting

UPI transactions in March 2023 were over 60 per cent and 46 per cent higher in volume and value terms from the year-ago period, according to NPCI

There are more than 7 billion transactions every month using the payment system - more than five transactions for every man, woman and child in the country

What changes: Tax on proceeds from high-value insurance policies, higher tax on debt MFs and more

The NPCI quickly clarified that the circular was only pertaining to PPI-based merchant transactions on UPI and the basic UPI transactions remain completely free

"This is about spreading India's soft power and also enabling Indian private sector, which is well versed in these technologies, to get business opportunities abroad," a second senior official said

The NPCI's decision to levy 1.1 per cent fees on the UPI-wallet payments has led to a lot of speculation on social media, people are worried this will make the transactions costlier. But is it true?

Paytm set to gain from interchange fee for merchant payment via wallets on UPI platform

From April 1, the platforms offering prepaid instruments like wallets and gift cards will have to pay interchange fees on transactions above Rs 2,000

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Wednesday said there is no charge for the bank account to bank account-based UPI payments or normal UPI payments. However, interchange charges are only applicable for the prepaid payment instruments (PPI) merchant transactions and there is no charge to customers, NPCI clarified in a statement. NPCI has permitted the PPI wallets to be part of interoperable UPI ecosystem and levied 1.1 per cent charge on unified payment interface (UPI) transactions above Rs 2,000 while using PPI. "The interchange charges introduced are only applicable for the PPI merchant transactions and there is no charge to customers, and it is further clarified that there are no charges for the bank account to bank account-based UPI payments (i.e. normal UPI payments)," it said. With this addition to UPI, the customers will have the choice of using any bank account, RuPay Credit card and prepaid wallets on UPI-enabled apps, it said. In recent times, it said, UPI h

Homegrown Paytm Payments Bank, the largest issuer of KYC wallets (prepaid instruments) with over 100 million users, on Monday announced that its full KYC wallet customers will be able to make payments

Move comes after NPCI announces KYC wallet interoperability

UPI driving consumers away from cash and helping financial inclusion, it says