The Indian Government has come up with some refreshing new ideas in the entire digital payment system environment that is guaranteed to bring a huge sigh of relief to the consumers and the merchants equally. The Government plans to launch The United Payment Interface (UPI) and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) in an avatar that will make it easier for consumers to transact digitally either with or without an internet connection.
The newly launched application will feature a single access window that will assist the users to transact across multiple banks. The government also plans to launch an upgraded, feature-rich version of USSD platform, which enables banking through feature phones. It is expected that the new advanced version will be launched within a week.
This new UPI app that is common across all banks and payment platforms will have basic features such as send/receive money, linking of a/c details, saving profile of user and beneficiary details.
It has been observed that ever since November 8, the number of daily transactions on the UPI platform has “doubled to 70,000 with 4.2 million registered users” as per the National Payment Corporation of India. The MD of NPCI which hosts the two platforms and handles all retail platforms in the country are not amused at the current number of users and hence are taking initiatives to increase that number so as to benefit the ultimate goal of a cashless society.
Since its launch in August, the adoption of UPI has been debilitated by the lack of a common application. Currently users can download any of the 33 applications of banks registered on Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. As per the intention, the new version will provide a common application that will simplify the use of the platform. It is expected of the banks that instead of upgrading their individual apps, banks may switch over to the common app.
For the existing users, it is assured that the new app won’t replace the existing ones and will be in the form of a skeletal version of the apps already present. Banks have the option to redirect the common app or only allow their customers to use the in-house app which may be loaded with more features.
As observed by the Industry watchers, although a common UPI app will increase convenience a lot more needs to be done to popularize the platform.
To further boost the USSD platform, NPCI is deliberating its integration with UPI. The biggest challenge that NPCI faces with the platform is that the bulk of transactions involve no transfer of money, but users checking their balances and other activities. This new platform will integrate with the feature phone so deeply that the users can send money, collect money from a person or agency along with saving beneficiary details and the preferred language, hence enabling the users to not have to select it each time they operate USSD.
USSD, which is currently available in 12 Indian languages apart from Hindi and English, will be made transparent in terms of pricing of UPI-based transactions. This will transform the payment platforms into a more mainstream category.
Indian Government plans to bring new system for Digital Payments
