What is Unified Payments Interface (UPI)?

Going digital is the need of the hour. Though net banking and credit cards have been in market for quite some time now, they have been limited to people who have access to net and are tech-savvy. With the digital push by Indian Government new modes and methods of payments are being developed to ease out payments.

Recently mobile wallets got a huge push after demonetization about which I have already talked in one of my earlier blogs. UPI is one such application which has been recently launched and further simplifies the digital payments while securing your details at the same time.

Here’s a sneak peek into what exactly Unified Payments Interface or UPI is and how it works.   

What is it?
Unified Payment Interface allows transfer of money both online and offline from one bank to another or for making any other payments, using a bank’s own app. It precludes use of credit card details or filling IFSC codes or any other bank account number.

Once you have registered yourself after downloading the app of the bank where you have the account, you are provided with the M-pin (or mobile pin for mobile banking support) and you are ready for transactions up to 1 lakh rupees.

How does it work?
You create a virtual payment address – for example rahul@icici – linked to your account. This is the only information visible to the other party thereby protecting your sensitive information such as account number.

How do I register and initiate a UPI transaction?

Creating virtual address

• Download UPI app from app store or banks website – the list of UPI enabled banks and their apps can be seen below.
• Create profile by adding name virtual ID and password that you would like to use.
• Go to “manage account” and link your bank and account number to your virtual ID

Generating M-Pin

• If you have registered more than one bank account then select the account from which you want to proceed for transaction.
• Click on the option “Generate M-Pin.”
• You receive a one time password (OTP) on your mobile (registered).
• Using the OTP enter the last six digits of your debit card and its expiry date.
• Choose the M-pin that you would like to use and submit.
• You get a notification of successful registration.

To make payments

• Login to UPI app and select send money.
• Enter the payee (person who will receive money) details like his/her virtual ID and amount to paid ( i.e. to be debited from your account).
• You get a screen with details of payee and transaction amount, confirm it.
• Enter your M-Pin to carry out transaction and you receive a notification regarding transaction.

Pull transactions (to generate request for payments)

• Customer to merchant or between merchants, this button can be used to generate a payment request.
• Once you have logged in you select an option of collect money (to be credited to your account).
• You enter the payers virtual ID and amount to be collected.
• The payer gets a notification on his/her mobile a request for payment.
• This can be either allowed or declined. In case it is accepted the payer has to enter his/her M-PIN to complete the transaction.
• Payer gets a notification of debit while payee receives notification of credit to her/his account.

What are the benefits of using UPI?
UPI allows a single platform for accessing multiple bank accounts and allows seamless transaction between participant banks utilizing the existing infrastructure.It allows 24 hour transactions at your convenience. You can make payment of utility bills, over the counter payments, bar code based payments, cash on delivery payments, in app payments, online payments, donations etc. and can also generate a pay request to another party which can the make payments. It is extremely safe as your details are not revealed to the other party. Since it does not involve the use of a card, it can be easily used by large section of population.

List of banks that offer UPI services and a link to UPI enabled apps.
As of date there are 33 banks that offer UPI based transaction services. Of these 27 have their own apps. The list of these 27 banks is given below.

Sl.No.	Bank Name	App Name
1	Allahabad Bank	Allahabad Bank UPI
2	Andhra Bank	Andhra Bank ONE
3	Axis Bank	Axis Pay
4	Bank of Baroda	Baroda MPay
5	Bank of Maharashtra	MAHAUPI
6	Canara Bank	Canara Bank UPI – Empower
7	Catholic Syrian Bank	CSB UPI
8	Central Bank of India	Cent UPI
9	DCB Bank	DCB Bank
10	Federal Bank	Lotza
11	HDFC Bank	HDFC Bank MobileBanking
12	ICICI Bank	Pockets- ICICI Bank
13	IDFC Bank	IDFC Bank UPI App
14	IndusInd Bank	Indus Pay
15	Karnataka Bank	KBL Smartz
16	Kotak Mahindra Bank	KayPay
17	Oriental Bank of Commerce	OBCUPI PSP
18	Punjab National Bank	PNB UPI
19	RBL Bank	RBL Pay
20	South Indian Bank	SIB M-Pay (UPI Pay)
21	State Bank of India	SBI Pay
22	TJSB Bank	TranZapp
23	UCO Bank	UCO UPI
24	Union Bank of India	Union Bank UPI
25	United Bank of India	United UPI
26	Vijaya Bank	Vijaya UPI App
27	Yes Bank	Yes Pay

Source: National Payments Corportion of India (NPCI) website

Transaction limits
At present, the upper limit per UPI transaction is Rs. 1 lakh.