UPI app to be loaded with more features

Posted by sonal deo on April 24th, 2017

Incorporating the bill payments function and setting up its own check on the number of transactions per user per day to prevent suspicious transactions are among additional features that the National Payments Corporation of India is working on to make its newly-launched payments solution Unified Payments Interface (UPI) more comprehensive and secure.

Currently, two applications — for person-to-person money transfer and for e-commerce transactions — are available on the smartphone-based UPI, which was launched on August 25. UPI enables sending and receiving money in real-time through a mobile application. Banks — 20 at last count — have uploaded their UPI app on Google Play Store.

The service facilitates ‘virtual payment address’ as a payment identifier for sending and collecting money and works on single-click two-factor authentication.

It also provides an option for scheduling push and pull transactions for various purposes, such as sharing bills among peers. One can use UPI app instead of paying cash on receiving a product ordered from online shopping websites.

AP Hota, MD & CEO, NPCI, said: “Person-to-person money transfer and e-commerce collections are the two applications available on the UPI at the moment….We have started discussions with banks on how to plug-in the bill payments functionality (in UPI).

“So, bill payments functionality is being added. In the next two months, a couple of banks will come forward (with this feature).”

Under the bill payments facility, a bank customer can transfer money from his savings bank account via the mobile-based UPI to billers belonging to categories such as telephone, mobile, electricity, insurance, and credit cards to settle his dues, anywhere, any time.

To further enhance UPI’s security and risk mitigation features, NPCI, the umbrella organisation for all retail payments in the country, is examining the number of times a bank customer can transact in a day.

While banks have put in place a mechanism for velocity check on the number of transactions effected per day/per beneficiary, so that a suspicious operation trigger an alert within the bank and to the customer, NPCI is looking at having its own velocity check.

Hota said: “Now the individual transaction limit is ₹1 lakh (per transaction) and the velocity check is done by the individual banks. Now, they would like to let the check to be done by NPCI also.

“There is a suggestion for limiting the number of transactions (daily) to three or five. We have the capability to do velocity checks.

“We are examining what is the number that should be allowed.”

After the UPI was launched, NPCI came across cases where a bank customer’s mobile number is linked to more than one account (the customer’s own account, his wife’s account and his daughter’s account).

“In such a situation, if we try to put through a transaction, it would show an error. We need to deal with such situations. This is a condition which escaped our attention and we are trying to deal with it.

“Right now such transactions are getting rejected. We are trying to resolve this along with the banks,” explained Hota.

Upi update

As on date, 20 banks, including Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, are offering UPI. As on September 14, the number of UPI apps downloaded were 2.25 lakhs.

Source: http://bit.ly/2oCgRKr