INTRODUCTION

According to the NPCI, “Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers
multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application, merging several banking
features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood. UPI’s overall
importance comes from the intense desire and effort made by the RBI and the
government to create a cost effective, simple and safe digital payment system that
will be used for the large population of the country. The RBI along with the NPCI
has made commendable efforts to spread digital payments culture. According to the
RBI, a digital payment platform should be simple, safe and efficient while carrying
out payments. Various criteria about an ideal payment system was brought out by
the RBI in its vision for a future payment system dreaming a digital transaction
economy. From this angle, a remarkable feature of the UPI is that it satisfies
several criteria put forwarded by RBI’s payment system vision of safe, efficient,
interoperable, authorized, accessible, inclusive and compliant with international
standards. We all are used to payment apps like PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, etc
these apps have become a crucial part of our lives. The transaction on these apps
takes place by UPIThe Unified Payment Interface is a single-interface payment
system, developed by the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI). UPI:
Unified Payment Interface is a smartphone application that allows users to transfer
money between bank account. It is a platform where customers can link bank
accounts held by different banks into a single UPI application and use their
registered cell phone number to easily trade between them around the clock. The
UPI Platform is a UPI system that operates from multiple banks accounts in a
single mobile application from participating banks, combining multiple banking
features such as seamless fund routing and merchant payments under one roof. The
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) developed a single-window
mobile payment system (Mobile Payments). There is no need to enter bank details
and other sensitive information every time a customer initiates a transaction. UPI
has introduced new features such as In-App payments, cross-screen QR codes, the
addition of webbased payments, and the extension of the range of services to
online payments using UnionPay-powered e-wallets.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers multiple bank accounts
into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several
banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood.
It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and
paid as per requirement and convenience . With the above context in mind, NPCI
conducted a pilot launch with 21 member banks. The pilot launch was on 11th
April 2016 by Dr. Raghuram G Rajan, Governor, RBI at Mumbai. Banks have
started to upload their UPI enabled Apps on Google Play store from 25th
August, 2016 onwards.
How is it unique?
· Immediate money transfer through mobile device round the clock 24*7 and 365
days.
· Single mobile application for accessing different bank accounts.
· Single Click 2 Factor Authentication – Aligned with the Regulatory guidelines,
yet provides for a very strong feature of seamless single click payment.
· Virtual address of the customer for Pull & Push provides for incremental
security with the customer not required to enter the details such as Card no,
Account number; IFSC etc.
· Bill Sharing with friends.
· Best answer to Cash on Delivery hassle, running to an ATM or rendering exact
amount.
· Merchant Payment with Single Application or In-App Payments.
· Utility Bill Payments, Over the Counter Payments, Barcode (Scan and Pay)
based payments.
· Donations, Collections, Disbursements Scalable.
· Raising Complaint from Mobile App directly
Participants in UPI
· Payer PSP
· Payee PSP
· Remitter Bank
· Beneficiary Bank
· NPCI
· Bank Account holders
· Merchants

UPI - Benefits to the Ecosystem participants

Benefits for banks
· Single click Two Factor authentication
· Universal Application for transaction
· Leveraging existing infrastructure
· Safer, Secured and Innovative
· Payment basis Single/ Unique Identifier
· Enable seamless merchant transactions
Benefits for end Customers
· Round the clock availability
· Single Application for accessing different bank accounts
· Use of Virtual ID is more secure, no credential sharing
· Single click authentication
· Raise Complaint from Mobile App directly
Benefits for Merchants
· Seamless fund collection from customers - single identifiers
· No risk of storing customer’s virtual address like in Cards
· Tap customers not having credit/debit cards
· Suitable for e-Com & m-Com transaction
· Resolves the COD collection problem
· Single click 2FA facility to the customer - seamless Pull
· In-App Payments (IAP)
· Registration in UPI enabled application

Steps for Registration

· User downloads the UPI application from the App Store/Banks website · User
creates his/her profile by entering details like name, virtual id (payment address),
password etc.
· User goes to “Add/Link/Manage Bank Account” option and links the bank and
account number with the virtual id
Generating UPI – PIN
· User selects the bank account from which he/she wants to initiate the transaction
· User clicks one of the option -
Change M-PIN
In the case of 3(a) -
· User receives OTP from the Issuer bank on his/her registered mobile number
· User now enters last 6 digits of Debit card number and expiry date
· User enters OTP and enters his preferred numeric UPI PIN( UPI PIN that he
would like to set) and clicks on Submit
· After clicking submit, customer gets notification (successful or decline)
In the case of 2(b) -
· User enters his old UPI PINand preferred new UPI PIN (UPI PIN that he would
like to set) and clicks on Submit
· After clicking submit, customer gets notification (successful or failure

Performing a UPI Transaction

PUSH – sending money using virtual address
· User logs in to UPI application
· After successful login, user selects the option of Send Money/Payment
· User enters beneficiary’s/Payee virtual id, amount and selects account to be
debited
· User gets confirmation screen to review the payment details and clicks on
Confirm · User now enters UPI PIN
· User gets successful or failure message

Is it secure?
UPI transactions use highly secure encryption format that is not easy to
tamper. NPCI’s IMPS network handles about Rs.8,000 crore worth
transactions every day. This is expected to exponentially increase with UPI
technology. It uses a two-factor authentication method, similar to OTP, for
verifying every transaction. However, UPI PIN will be used in the place of OTP
for validation.
 Objectives of the study
The study is to know the consumer awareness, consumer perception and consumer
satisfaction towards UPI
2) To identify the variance between UPI services and traditional services
3) To study about factors that effects the consumer perception towards UPI
4) To find out the level of awareness of UPI and its adoption by people of different
age groups and income levels.
 Features of UPI
1) UPI enables personal mobile to be used to be used as a primary device for all
payments including person to person, person to entity, and entity to person. Using
UPI. users can seamlessly make or request payments with ease and security
to/from friends, merchants or pay their bills etc. without the need to share banking
credentials. User can consolidate multiple banking relationships using a single UPI
App which makes for good user experience for users.
2) The payment can be initiated both by sender (payer) and receiver (payee). this
enables a personal mobile to be used to “pay” someone (push) as well as “collect”
from someone (pull).
3) UPI allows users to create their unique virtual payment address thus enabling
users to make payments only by providing a payment address without the need to
provide sensitive details like bank account numbers or credentials on third party
applications or websites. The payments can be done using multiple identifiers like
virtual payment address, Aadhaar Number or Account number & Indian financial
system code (IFSC)
4)UPI provides a standard set of APIs to enable transactions on UPI platform, thus
enabling a fully interoperable system across all banks, financial institutions and
payment systems without having silos across all banks, financial institutions and
payment system without having silos and closed systems. These minimalistic and
fully functional APIs allows innovations by payment service providers to build
customized payment solutions for businesses and functionality rich mobile apps for
consumer’s without having to change the core API structure.
5) UPI uses One-click 2-factor authentication for safe and secure payments using a
personal mobile phone without the need for any separate acquiring devices or
physical tokens.

Advantages
 Immediate money transfer through mobile device round the clock 24*7
and 365 days.
Single mobile application for accessing different bank accounts.
Virtual address of the customer for Pull & Push provides for
incremental security with the customer not required to enter the details
such as Card no, Account number; IFSC etc
Bill Sharing with friends and opportunity to earn reward points
Best answer to Cash on Delivery hassle, running to an ATM or
rendering exact amount.
Utility Bill Payments, Over the Counter Payments, Barcode (Scan and
Pay) based payments.
Online transactions
Donations, Collections, Disbursements Scalable.

Disadvantages:
1. UPI is a deal for smaller fund transfers, when an amount is high then
other modes of online transfer are preferable.
2. Another issue with UPI is that it is difficult to persuade customers to
download the bank application to their smartphone for a single payment
interface because they are concerned about online fraud.
3. Do not tell your personal information such as the date of birth, The
UPI pin, and other information to any other person, so that your account
will be safe.
4. If you want to transfer payment in the UPI, then you can transfer up to
Rs 10,000 as much as possible. You should send it one at a time if you
need to send it more than once
5. You must know that you have to transfer money from the unified
payment interface pin is also known as the UPI pin, and it is a very small
digit, 4 to 6 digit while having a small digit, it is not safe, so make your
payment carefully and its information does not let anyone else know.
6. It does not work on the slow of the internet.
7. UPI is a very fast and safe medium, but sometimes it takes a lot of
time to send the payment after the bank’s server down.
8. If you want to pay using the UPA, you won’t need the UTI support
app, which you’ll need to install on your Android smartphone and use
regularly take your mobile RAM 15 too much. So that your mobile
hangs or uses too much internet to avoid it, you can clear app cache and
background data to the user can also shut down

Trends in using UPI Apps

Transactions made using the Unified Payments Interface scaled a new peak in
December 2021, surpassing the previous record set in October when the value of
UPI transactions crossed $100 billion for the first time. According to data from the
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), 456 crore UPI transactions worth
about Rs 8.27 crore were conducted last month. That compares with 422 crore
transactions worth about Rs 7.71 lakh crore in October and 230 crore transactions
worth Rs 4.31 lakh crore last January. In all of 2021, more than 3,800 crore UPI
transactions amounting to Rs 73 lakh crore were conducted. NPCI now expects the
UPI platform to hit 100 crore transactions per day after the Reserve Bank of India
enables the use of UPI wallets for low-valueofflinetransactions.
 Future growth of UPI
Transaction values in 2021 have grown by 103 percent. When the Unified
Payments Interface (UPI) was launched in 2016, little did anyone know that it
would account for over 50 percent of retail payments in India in just five years.
While India looked towards digital payment modes right after the demonetization
of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 bills in 2016, it was the pandemic in 2020 that brought a
large chunk of new users onto digital platforms amid the nationwide lockdown. In
2021, the second year of the pandemic, with the second wave of Covid-19 way
worse than anything India had seen earlier, people began switching to digital
transactions more than ever before. Monthly UPI transaction values took four years
to breach the Rs 3 lakh crore mark in August 2020. Barely 14 months later, in
October, that number more than doubled and crossed the Rs 7 lakh crore mark.
Once the habit set in, many Indians have only used online payments for
transactions. QR codes for UPI payments are no longer the preserve of restaurants
and bigger establishments but can be seen even in tiny roadside stalls. The year
began with the monthly UPI transaction value at Rs 4 lakh crore. And with barely a
week left for 2021 to end, that value has nearly doubled to Rs 7.5 lakh crore (over
$100 billion).

CUSTOMERS OF UPI
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers multiple bank accounts
into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several
banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood. It
also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as
per requirement and convenience. Out of all UPI transactions done 54% are
person-to –person (P2P) while 46% were person –to – person merchant(P2M)

UPI apps
PhonePe
Paytm
BHIM app
MobiKwik
Google Tez
Uber
Chillr
Paytm Payments Bank
SBI Pay
iMobile
Axis Pay
BOB UPI

PhonePe
PhonePe or PhonePe Private Limited it is an Indian e-commerce payment service
and digital
wallet company. PhonePe was founded in the year 2015 by its founders,
Mr.Sameer Nigam and
Rahul Chari and it was the first payment app in India which was built on Unified
Payments
Interface i.e (UPI). PhonePe is now available in 11 Languages. Phone Pe offers
various services
such as:-
i. User can send or receive money through Phone Pe app.
ii. User can make various payment- mobile recharges, DTH recharges, users can
also make
payments of shopping online on various apps.
iii. Phone Pe even allows users to book tickets through various apps such as
Redbus, Goibibo,
Ola etc.
Phone Pe app has more than 100 million users and it has crossed more than 5
billion
transactions.
Latest development of Phone Pe app is that it allows its customers to withdraw
cash through its
in app UPI feature which is also known as Phone Pe ATM, which means that
transferring the
said amount which has to be withdrawn to a nearby Phone Pe enabled merchant/
seller
Google Pay
Google Pay also known as G Pay or Pay with Google it is also one type of Digital
Wallet and
online payment system developed by Google. The services of Android Pay and
Google
wallet merged in January 2018 and the name was changed to Google Pay. On
September
2017, Google launched an UPI-based app known as TEZ in India which was later
rebranded
as Google Pay. Google pay has more than 25 million active users in a month of the
digital
wallets in India. Google pay transactions are safe and secure.
Google Pay enables you to:-
· Send and receive money.
· Store your credit/ debit card information safe.
· And use this information to pay for various items on various apps .
Google Pay is known for its security among other similar digital payment apps.
Google store
your credit/debit card information in its secure servers using strong encryption.
Cloud
storage and data security of the customers is the prime concern of Google
UPI BHIM App
BHIM stands for Bharat Interface for Money. BHIM App is developed by National
Payments Corporation of India i.e (NPCI) and it is based on Unifies Payment
Interface i.e
(UPI). Our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modiji had launched this app. BHIM
App was
launched on 30th December 2016 and is currently available in 20 languages.
BHIM App accepts all Indian banks which works on UPI system and which is built
over
IMPS i.e Immediate Payment System which allows the user to transfer money to
Bank
accounts of any two parties.
Using UPI system user can make transactions in an easy, quick and simple manner.
Through BHIM App users can do the various services:-
i. User can Send money.
ii. User can Request money, for this it is mandatory that the users mobile number
be
linked with the bank account using.
iii. For quick transactions users can Scan and Pay.
iv. Additional feature of BHIM App is that it allows the customers to check their
transactions history.
v. There is a report tab in BHIM App for the customers if they have any complaint
to raise they can use this tab to do the same.
vi. Next option in the BHIM App is the Bank account option, so through this
option
user can view the bank account that is linked with his/her BHIM App. A customer
can also change the bank account by just clicking „Change Account‟ in the BHIM
App.
vii. Through BHIM App it is easy to transfer money as BHIM App allows a
customer
to transfer money to more than one payment address.
MobiKwik
MobiKwik is also another Indian company app which acts as a digital wallet, as a
mobile
payments system. MobiKwik is an app founded by Bipin Singh and Upasana Taku
in the
year 2009. Initially MobiKwik was just a website with closed wallet facility but
later
started with mobile apps. In the year 2016 MobiKwik launched -Mobikwik Lite
app
which was for older 2G mobile networks and those with poor network
connectivity.
MobiKwik launched its first ever Mobile Wallet system in the year 2012.
Mobikwik also launched the feature of sending and receiving money through a
mobile
app. Mobikwik also provides financial services such as providing loans, various
insurances such as life insurance, accident insurance, fire insurance as well as
mutual
funds. In the year 2017, MobiKwik „s biggest competitor was Paytm.
According to Forbes India Magazine, in the year 2015 MobiKwik was used by
more than
15million users for its unique features and was also claiming of increase of one
million
users every month.
In the year 2016, India had Demonetization during this time Mobikwik had a 400%
increase in Financial Transactions.
Google Tez
Launched by technology giant Google, the Tez app is one of the other apps that
will provide customers the facility of using UPI. What makes this app different is
that it is available in many Indian languages such as Telugu, Tamil, Marathi,
Kannada, Gujarati, Bengali, and Hindi.

Uber
Now, Uber has included UPI as one of the modes of payment. You can pay for your
Uber rides with this interface.
Chillr
This payments app has made available UPI as one of its payment methods. This
app had been providing fund transfer facility through IMPS before it joined the
UPI bandwagon.
PayTM
PayTM is an Indian e-commerce operator and Financial Technology company.
Paytm was
founded in August 2010 by its founder Mr. Vijay Shekhar Sharma. In 2014, the
company
launched its first Digital E-wallet known as Paytm Wallet. Paytm offers Digital
wallet payment,
mobile payments, online shopping, Paytm Payments Bank etc.
In the year 2015, RBI gave Licence to Paytm to launch Paytm Payments Bank
which was later
inaugurated in the year 2017 by the then Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley. Paytm
works in 2
different ways :- Paytm Wallet and Paytm Payments Bank.
Paytm is known as a digital payment system which allows you to transfer money
through your
debit/credit cards and which also allows you to do online banking. Once you
register to Paytm
you can make online payment of bills or you can make payment through you
paytm wallet by
first adding money into your wallet.
YONO by SBI
This mobile wallet application was introduced by State Bank of India. This wallet
offers
its services in 13 Languages. The word YONO means You Only Need One, this
app
helps users to access various financial and other services, it acts as a Digital
Banking
platform which offers various services such as online shopping payments, booking
tickets
of (train, bus, taxi, flights), it also allows customers to make medical bill payments.

YONO app was launched in the year 2017 by Mr. Arun Jaitley, the then Finance
Minister
of India. This app can also be used by customers to make ATM withdrawals as well
as
this app can be used to make various fund transfers, etc.
Through YONO app a customer can track his/her OD account balance, can even
open
fixed deposit, recurring deposits, and can even invest in mutual funds. Customers
can
even track their loans through this app.
iMobile
The UPI interface can be used through the iMobile and Pockets app offered by
ICICI Bank. The app can be downloaded from Google Play store. To send money
through this app, you have to go to the ‘Funds Transfer’ option and click on the
UPI method.
Axis Pay
Axis Bank is one of the other banks that has launched a UPI enabled platform for
its customers. This comes with a very user-friendly interface and various other
features.
BOB UPI
The BOB UPI app has been launched by Bank of Baroda and can be downloaded
from Google Play Store. One of the advantages of this app is that it provides
customers certain additional features that are not available on other UPI apps.
Around 52 banks in the country have collaborated with UPI to provide customers
the service. While most banks have developed their own UPI app in their existing
mobile apps, other banks do not have UPI, while some banks have partnered with
third parties to provide customers’ access to UPI. The UPI interface is changing the
way digital payments are being made in the country. There a number of UPI apps
in the market and there are more and more such apps that are being launched.
Another important point to remember is that you can use any UPI app to link your
bank account Therefore all UPI apps are interoperable. For example, a customer
can use or connect a Yes Bank account on the ICICI Pockets app