UPI Autopay in our Everyday Lives

NPCI is now a step closer to making UPI India’s one-stop payment solution. With the launch of UPI Autopay, a feature that enables automatic payment of recurring expenses directly through UPI, people no longer have to worry about monthly bill payments, Subscriptions, Booking tickets, etc.

The authentication for such transactions has been enabled through an E-mandate for transactions below Rs. 2000 and PIN authentication on any amount above. Since its launch two years ago, UPI has grown to become India’s most widely used payments system, with over 1.3 billion payments per month. According to the RBI report of 2018-2019, UPI Payments have overtaken cash and card payments. And now, through the launch of Autopay, NPCI aims to increase this number to one billion per day.

UPI autopay also has several security measures set up to prevent unintentional/accidental deductions from the account and ensure that the control remains in the user’s hands. A few of them being

1. Mandatory notifications and several steps of authentications during the e-mandate set-up
2. 24-hour prior notification sent to the user before every payment deduction
3. Ability to program the mandated frequency
4. The ability to set up or change the frequency of the mandates as and when required.
5. Additional PIN authentication in case of payments above Rs 2000

 

But how does it impact a regular Indian consumer and commerce?

Let’s take the scenario of recurring payments to a streaming service like Hotstar or Netflix on the consumer side. They no longer have to worry about recurring payments each time to renew the subscription; however, an amount above Rs 2000, additional authentication using your UPI PIN. With the help of e-mandates, it is now possible to set up an automatic deduction of the amount from our account directly through the UPI app with one-time authentication. E-mandates also allow us to choose the frequency of payments, daily, monthly, yearly, or when required. Consumers also retain complete control to modify or stop the payments at any time.

This feature will provide a substantial boost to subscription lead businesses that are currently dominated by card-based payment systems on the commerce side. It will also prove to be a game-changer in digitizing the informal sector, like the paper-walas and doodh-walals, who are currently highly cashing dependent for their monthly collections from customers.

Construct of UPI AutoPay 

But if UPI Autopay is the infrastructure, E-mandate is the foundation it was built upon. It allows the user to retain complete control of payments while at the same time removing the hassle of repeat authorizations in case of recurring expenses. Although e-mandates are already being used by leading industries, Insurance, and wealth management platforms, coupling it with UPI-Autopay gives an additional boost.

Thus, with UPI Autopay unlocking a new economy in India, several industries can now look forward to providing a smoother customer experience and affordable services. In addition, autopay is poised to make RBI’s vision of a completely digital India a reality with unlimited applications and seamless integration.