Customers will have to wait for about two months to transact on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), tipped to bring about a payments revolution in the country by making money transfer as easy as sending text messages.
Of the 29 banks that have tied up with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) that launched the UPI, only 10 banks are ready with the app for the service.
However, these banks are still in the pilot stage and it will take them two more months to open the interface to customers, according to Dilip Asbe, chief operating officer, NPCI. “Ten banks that are ready with the application right now will be testing it internally for the next few weeks. This will include end-to-end tests and will be done to check security, convenience.”
Through UPI, one can transfer money to another person through a unique virtual address (virtual addresses are aliases to a bank account allowing a customer's account to be uniquely mapped), a mobile number, or Aadhaar number. Customers don’t need to know the payee’s IFSC code, bank account details to transfer up to Rs 1 lakh per transaction.
It also allows customers to download the UPI app of any bank and consolidate all their bank accounts for transactions.
“UPI will make the payment systems fully interoperable across all payment system players without having silos and closed systems, removing simplicity arbitrage, by enabling one click for two-factor authentication, that some pure-play remittance players have been using. It will also catalyse low-cost, high-volume payments and create a new ecosystem that banks/billers can adopt and offer simpler and instant offering of UPI to their customers,” said Vivek Belgavi, partner - financial services (fintech and technology consulting leader) at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Of the 29 banks that have tied up with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) that launched the UPI, only 10 banks are ready with the app for the service.
However, these banks are still in the pilot stage and it will take them two more months to open the interface to customers, according to Dilip Asbe, chief operating officer, NPCI. “Ten banks that are ready with the application right now will be testing it internally for the next few weeks. This will include end-to-end tests and will be done to check security, convenience.”
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The banks that are currently testing the application include ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, YES Bank, Punjab National Bank and Andhra Bank, among others. Some banks such as Bank of India recently floated a tender to rope in partners to manage their UPI interface.
Through UPI, one can transfer money to another person through a unique virtual address (virtual addresses are aliases to a bank account allowing a customer's account to be uniquely mapped), a mobile number, or Aadhaar number. Customers don’t need to know the payee’s IFSC code, bank account details to transfer up to Rs 1 lakh per transaction.
It also allows customers to download the UPI app of any bank and consolidate all their bank accounts for transactions.
“UPI will make the payment systems fully interoperable across all payment system players without having silos and closed systems, removing simplicity arbitrage, by enabling one click for two-factor authentication, that some pure-play remittance players have been using. It will also catalyse low-cost, high-volume payments and create a new ecosystem that banks/billers can adopt and offer simpler and instant offering of UPI to their customers,” said Vivek Belgavi, partner - financial services (fintech and technology consulting leader) at PricewaterhouseCoopers.