With UPI 2.0, NPCI seeks to increase its use cases in e-commerce

Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which has the upper limit per transaction of Rs 1 lakh, is planning to double the transaction limit to Rs 2 lakh along with enabling new features on the platform.

The new features of UPI 2.0 may include an overdraft facility for getting invoices attached with payment requests. Besides, it is planning to introduce a ‘block payment’ option, which consumers can adopt for cab rides, e-commerce deliveries, buying stocks during IPOs and other transactions.

It means that with the new feature, service providers can block a certain amount in the customer’s bank account and debit it on successful completion of the service. In case of a cab ride, it can be on a trip completion or in the case of e-commerce, it could be after an order is delivered.

The NPCI-owned payment platform was also planning to introduce a ‘standing instruction’ feature on the platform which was not approved by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The standing instruction feature would have worked as an auto-debit facility for consumers for repeat transactions such as loan payments or mutual fund investments.

Experts say that the new features will give a further push to the digital payment in the e-commerce segment which still sees cash-on-delivery as the largest mode of payment by customers.

The use of UPI has grown over the past two years and the latest updates are expected to attract fresh users, expand use cases and drive repeat transactions on the platform.

Since its inception, the UPI payment ecosystem has been growing at a fast pace. According to the latest data released by NPCI, the transaction volume for June stood at 246.37 million, while transaction value was recorded at about Rs 40,834.03 crore with 22 per cent growth as compared to May 2018.

Meanwhile, the growth in UPI transaction is expected to explode when WhatsApp comes into play. The Facebook-owned company is delaying the mass launch of WhatsApp Pay due to privacy concerns raised by regulatory bodies.

The development was first reported by ET.