17.8.18

NPCI Launches New-look UPI

If Unified Payments Interface revolutionised the peer-to-peer digital payments ecosystem in the country, National Payments Corporation of India has now launched an updated version of the payment railroad, mainly to drive merchant payments on UPI.

The updated UPI, commonly referred to as UPI 2.0, was launched by the Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel along with State Bank chairman Rajnish Kumar and Infosys non-executive chairman Nandan Nilekani.

Banks like SBI, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Yes Bank are the first batch of lenders to be going live on UPI 2.0.

With features such as overdraft facility on UPI, block payments for purchasing stocks during IPO, or bringing in a signed intent, UPI is set to introduce new features, mainly to ease merchant payments on the platform.

UPI 2.0 was announced by the previous managing director of NPCI AP Hota way back in 2016, saying the intent was to launch the update in 2017, but it took a long time for the tech platform to be developed and stabilised, especially with explicit permissions required from the central bank. One of the biggest misses for UPI 2.0 was the feature of recurring payments which could have driven transactions for use cases such as mutual fund payments, loan repayments, etc.

While few features have been missed, the industry is gearing up for a whole set of new features on UPI after the update.

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