NPCI launches Unified Payments Interface 2.0

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Thursday launched Unified Payments Interface (UPI) 2.0.

Dilip Asbe, MD and CEO, NPCI said, “We are happy to witness the revolution brought about by UPI in the last two years. Large number of banks, merchants, third-party players and consumers trusted this platform which resulted in substantial growth in terms of volume and value of transactions since its inception. With the launch of UPI 2.0, we hope to touch new milestones by expanding UPI’s presence especially in person-to-merchant payment space.”

Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel, NPCI Advisor-Innovation Nandan Nilekani, and SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar on Thursday launched the service.

Nandan Nilekani said, “UPI is a path breaking innovation that is unprecedented globally. Its high volume, low cost and highly scalable architecture built on an open source platform is key to India’s transformation to a digital payment economy.”

The key features of UPI 2.0 are Overdraft facility, Invoice in the inbox and One time mandate, among others. 

In addition to current and savings accounts, customers can link their overdraft account to UPI. Customers will be able to transact instantly and all benefits associated with OD account shall be made available to the users. UPI 2.0 will serve as an additional digital channel to access OD account.

SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar said, “NPCI has played a stellar role in enabling various payment platforms. The success story of UPI has been acknowledged across the world with other countries trying to emulate similar solutions.” 

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 are UPI 2.0 member banks

Launched on April 11, 2016, UPI platform has emerged as a popular choice among users for sending and receiving money. BHIM UPI has recorded transactions worth Rs 45,845 crore and 235 million in terms of value and volume in the month of July 2018.