UPI to soon have autopay, offline payments, other features for ease of use: Report

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is looking at a series of developments on its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform to make it interoperable across the payments system.

Among the developments planned are linking of UPI to payment wallets, autopay feature for recurring payments, integration on WhatsApp, loan offerings and enabling offline use through near-field communication (NFC) via point of sale (PoS) terminals, Mint reported.

Two bankers in the know told Moneycontrol that digital payment majors PhonePe and Google Pay are working with the NPCI to offer recurring payment mandates (autopay) to their users.

The move will enable a large number of customers to opt for the auto-debit facility for monthly payments such as electricity bills, mobile phone bills, EMIs, media subscriptions, and insurance premiums through these applications.

Google Pay and PhonePe did not respond to Moneycontrol’s request for comments.

EXCLUSIVE | Google Pay, PhonePe to soon offer auto debit through UPI

UPI’s move towards NFC-based PoS transactions was earlier reported, where sources said NPCI is in talks with payment aggregators to push the product across PoS devices. The access to PoS and NFC capability will likely expand UPI’s reach to offline merchants increase the peer-to-merchant transaction and compete with private payment networks.

Akash Gehani, co-founder of payments gateway, Instamojo told Mint that companies in the space expect UPI adoption to “reach a significant scale and higher penetration” once WhatsApp integration is completed.

“It can help on board the next 100 million users faster. No app in the country can compete with WhatsApp on engagement. If making a payment is made as simple as sending a message, it would be more intuitive," he noted.

For loan offerings, NPCI has had discussions about using UPI for credit, a source told Mint adding that lenders could assess borrowers based on their payments history to give small-ticket loans.

Mohit Gopal, senior vice-president and strategy head at PayU India told the paper that borrowers wanting low-ticket loans quickly would benefit. “Many fintech companies are already doing it. But UPI will give them a more reliable platform," he added.

It is however not yet clear how NPCI is looking to implement these and what restrictions (on number of transactions, amounts, etc.) could be placed.