On August 16, 2018, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) launched Unified Payments Interface (UPI) 2.0 with enhanced security features and overdraft facilities. Now customers can link their overdraft account to UPI, create one time mandates and pre-authorisation of transactions for payment at a later date, and check the invoice sent by merchant before any payment is made.
In fact, the UPI mandate is used to transfer money at a later time by giving commitment at present. The mandate enables multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application of any participating bank, thus it merges several banking features, and provides smooth fund routing experience. The system also facilitates the ‘Peer to Peer’ collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and facility.
In April 2006, UPI version 1 was launched and in the period of two years it has become quite popular choice among users, UPI transactions have increased manifold. In its latest version, the facility allows customers to link their overdraft (OD) account to UPI, besides current and savings accounts. It will give the users various benefits associated with OD account and lead to instant transactions.
The customers can check the invoices sent by merchant with the new version before making payment to help customers view and verify the credentials and check whether it has come from the right source or not. There is also the provision of a quick response (QR) code feature for customers in order to verify the authencity of merchants while scanning the code. This is an additional security feature to the QR as well as intent.
As on August 2018, UPI 2.0 member banks include State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, RBL Bank, YES Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, Federal Bank and HSBC.