UPI (Unified Payment Interface) was launched on 11th April 2016 and in the last two years it has been the most preferred mode for sending and receiving money. As per NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India), UPI reached 7.3 billion transactions this October 2022, surely this implies the phenomenal growth of UPI in India. RBI’s digital payment index indicates the extent of digitization of payments across country, it has risen from 207.94 in March 2020 to 349.30 in March 2022.
The extent of this payment revolution is so much that users have stopped carrying wallet/cash with them, by simply relying on UPI transactions. Moreover, it has resolved the most common issue of cash transaction i.e., ‘not having change’. Even after achieving this level of digitalization in payment space, NPCI continues to add more cherries on the cake. Recently, they launched 3 more products-
- UPI Lite- To make small ticket payments quickly without the need to enter UPI PIN.
- UPI 123 Pay- To make payments using feature phones (not smartphones)
- Credit on UPI- To make payment through Credit Card instead of bank account
While above seems very fancy and cool, the question we need to ask ourselves is the need of it? Do we still require payment to be faster? Indian payment system has already achieved a significant level of digitization through NEFT, RTGS, IMPS and UPI. While this has become boon to many (mostly digital savvy people), but a curse to others especially those who are negligent, unaware of this sophisticated technology.
More number of fraudsters have become active these days that in general all banks including RBI have launched campaigns to spread awareness on digital payments to be vigilant. Fraudsters are using fake QR codes to trick innocent people and perform online scams. Vishing (Voice Phishing) is another common way by online scamsters to dupe. This has generated distrust of many in digital payments, and all its features like speed, operability and convenience are conceived like “known devil is better than unknown angel”.
Though we have all sorts of fraud detection and alert systems, somewhere we have failed in building the trust for online payments that they are safe and secure. Can we change our approach to ‘finding a cure’ rather than ‘preventing it’ only?
We require faster payments but not at the cost of safety and security. Its high time that R&D in payment space should focus more on how to make payments more safe and secure. Also, in case of default, how it can be backtracked.
While the new-age fintech start-ups are focusing more on providing users on demand one-click banking service, Finacle as a banking backbone has all kind of resources, data, system integrations to solution the aforementioned.
