IAS Gyan

Daily News Analysis

United Payment Interface (UPI)

16th November, 2021 ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

Figure 3: No Copyright Infringement Intended

Context:

  • The UPI payments system has cut across the Indian socio-economic digital divide amazingly fast.

About UPI:

  • UPI is a single platform that merges various banking services and features under one umbrella.
  • A UPI ID and PIN are sufficient to send and receive money.
  • Real-time bank-to-bank payments can be made using a mobile number or virtual payment address (UPI ID).
  • In 2020, UPI enabled commerce worth $457 billion, which is equivalent to approximately 15% of India’s GD

 

Involved Institutions:

  • UPI is an initiative taken by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) together with the Reserve Bank of India and Indian Banks Association (IBA).
  • NPCI is the firm that handles RuPay payments infrastructure, i.e. similar to Visa and MasterCard.