NPCI apprises not to believe that UPI transactions will be chargeable

By Edil Corneille

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella body of all retail payments in India, apprised that the news about the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions being charged from January 1, 2021, is incorrect. The organisation has requested everyone not to fall prey to such incorrect information.

NPCI has urged all customers to not believe in the incorrect stories of UPI transactions being charged. It has assured customers to continue to perform uninterrupted and convenient UPI transactions.

In India, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing and merchant payments into one hood. UPI is a real-time payment system facilitating inter-bank transactions.

Digital payments in India has been booming. Customers prefer to use this mode to make transactions amid the COVID-19 era and the trend to use the digital payment mode is expected to continue post the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Individuals are becoming increasingly familiar with financial technology (FinTech) and are realising the convenience of making payments digitally.

In November 2020, NPCI announced a cap of 30 per cent of the total volume of transactions processed in UPI for third party app providers from January 1, 2021, due to the growth in UPI payments which reached 2 billion transactions a month.

In December 2020, PayPal’s international digital money transfer service, Xoom, announced its integration with NPIL’s/NPCI’s UPI. The development enables Non-Residential Indians (NRIs) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) living in the United States (US), Canada and Europe to remit money to family and friends in India.