#unifiedpaymentsinterface

MUMBAI: The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Thursday allowed Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp to start its payments service in the country in a "graded" manner. The announcement by NPCI came minutes after it limited a single third party like WhatsApp or its rivals like Google Pay or Walmart's PhonePe to handle only 30 per cent of overall UPI transaction volumes by putting a cap. NPCI runs the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) used for real-time payments between peers or at merchants' end while making purchases. Having a cap on the transaction volume will help in de-risking the entire set-up and is essential as UPI, which surpassed two billion transactions a month mark in October, grows further, NPCI said in a statement. The industry has been feeling that allowing WhatsApp into payments may drive up volumes in the Indian digital payments space. In China, Wechat alone has over 1 billion active users for its payment services. WhatsApp has 400 million users in India while other Third Party App Providers (TPAPs) -- Google Pay had 75 million and PhonePe had 60 million -- as of May. WhatsApp has been running a pilot service for the last two years but was not given a formal go-ahead because of data localisation requirements. "NPCI has given approval for Whatsapp to 'Go Live' on UPI in the multi-bank model. Read the full article

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is estimated to see a massive growth in next five years, targeting more than 50 per cent of the payment space.

Forty percent of all UPI based transactions on Paytm are driven by offline merchants. The update of UPI 2.0 is aimed especially to expand person-to-merchant payments. “Organised electronics retail, fashion and departmental stores are witnessing more traction.”