How UPI has made payments faster, easier and reliable
A lot can happen over a decade. Back in the early 2010s, I would be so happy and excited when my dad would hand his ICCI debit card and whisper his pin in my ears, telling me to go to the nearest ATM to withdraw cash.
As a kid, it was so exciting even though I had no clue about the process behind it. All I knew was it was a machine that gives out cash and I strictly followed the rules that my dad taught me to get cash from an ATM.
As I grew old the same exciting process of going to an ATM and withdraw cash became a monotonous, boring and time-consuming process that I wholeheartedly hated.
Don’t get me started about the demonetization which happened a couple of years back.
Just like the millions of other Indians I was clueless and angry about this decision. But little did I know this also was a turning point towards the adoption of a new payment process known as UPI that would reduce time, effort and make our life’s much more easier and simple.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an instant real-time payment system developed by the National payment corporation of India(NPCI) facilitating inter-bank transactions.
Back in NOV 2016, second year of college to be precise. A friend of mine made me download BHIM UPI and TEZ (currently known as GOOGLE pay) saying i’ll get 51 rs and I blindly downloaded thinking it to be another wallet like Paytm, Freecharge. But then the amount was instantly transferred to the bank account which made me fall in love with the app instantly as there weren’t any wallets and other complications. Money straight to the account that too within a matter of few seconds. Three years later i rarely do any other method of payments other than UPI. Such has been the impact of UPI in my life.
UPI was developed to enable instant transactions between two banks and the concept of wallets were put to rest any transactions reflected immediately on the bank accounts making it simple and easy to use.
This was the beginning of true digitalization in terms of payments and transactions. As the word spread the usage of UPI gateways increased massively amongst the audience as this enabled transactions without using cash or cards.
In February this year, transactions worth Rs1.01 lakh crore (over $14 billion) were recorded via UPI, far above mobile wallets’ Rs14,279 crore.
As recently as October, the real-time payment service was responsible for over 50.49% of all digital transactions. UPI enabled GOOGLE pay accounting for 60% of the transactions.
From struggling to find the exact change at the cash counter to frustrations of failed transactions through debit and credit cards. UPI has enabled payments possible without having to fetch your purse for money or card. Your phone is all that you need to make a payment something which has helped me and millions of other Indians save time and effort and also allowing retailers to operate with ease.
Amidst stiff competition in India with lots of UPI powered apps in the market including BHIM UPI, Phone pe and others. Google Pay has dominated the UPI payment processing apps in India by a huge margin and the tech giants were really surprised and have admired UPI so much.
In fact, Google has written to the US Federal Reserve Board detailing the successful example of UPI-based digital payment in India in order to build “FedNow” — a new interbank real-time gross settlement service (RTGS) for faster digital payments in the US.
Not only the USA a host of other countries are studying the UPI payment system to implement the same. Being reliant on some of the world superpowers for help in terms of technology and other stuff over the past few decades it is highly refreshing how UPI has made India famous and proud across the globe. Made in India with perfection indeed!
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