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UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B

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Re: UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B

#161
post #5

The most incredible thing about UPI is how it was embraced by even the poorest in the remote corners of India. One of the former finance ministers of India talked in a dismissive tone in the parliament about rural India adopting digital payments when the current government announced "Digital India" plan. Some one made a meme video out of it mocking him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCnv8gwN0ug Another video showin…

Dont get carried away by tech thats offered for "free". Even if you subtract all the margins corporations (visa/mastercard etc) extract there is a gigantic bill when you make services free for everyone. Everything is beautiful when google, youtube, fb, twitter offered their stuff for free. But we know the true cost 20 years later. Sooner or later some one has to foot the bill. In this case a very small pool of indian…

There are 5 parties in UPI (or any payment system really): 1. bank customers, 2. bank, 3. payment network, 4. 3rdparty apps (TPAPs) 5. merchants.

UPI is free for #1. It costs #2, #3, #4 to build and operate the systems. So, #5 pays for accepting payments in UPI. But what they pay is far less than what it costs them to accept payments via other means including cash. Also, #2 pays somewhat because it is a service their customer values. Banks also like it because the network fees are far cheaper than other networks like Mastercard and Visa.

Naively someone might think paying and accepting in cash is free. But reality is cash handling can get expensive – leakages (cashier steals), counting and tallying cash, time lost in going to bank branch to deposit cash, dealing with providing exact change etc. are all expensive once you see how convenient and highly productive digital payments is.

Re: UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B

#162
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPI isn't QR based it you can also use UPI ID, which is like email. For eg: example@provider And most UPI are linked with phone number, so you can also pay via phone number if UPI is linked with it.

phone numbers aren’t secure at all thou.

How so?

Re: UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now Indian airports have outlets to create UPIs for foreigners visiting the country

Can’t wait to hand over my passport and drivers license to some random person after security wearing a uniform and holding an iPad after I get off an 8 hour red-eye. Surely nothing can go wrong.

It's the same as the kiosks to get a local SIM card which also often require ID. Also optional.

> drivers license

A driver's license is rarely accepted as a valid ID document outside of the US which rarely has anything better.

Re: UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B

#164
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t wait to hand over my passport and drivers license to some random person after security wearing a uniform and holding an iPad after I get off an 8 hour red-eye. Surely nothing can go wrong.

It's the same as the kiosks to get a local SIM card which also often require ID. Also optional. > drivers license A driver's license is rarely accepted as a valid ID document outside of the US which rarely has anything better.

https://internationaldrivingpermit.org/how-to-apply/

Re: UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swish has 3 ways: 1: You follow a link on your phone that opens the app, you're prompted with the transaction sum and then sign with a code on the phone and done. 2: You scan a QR code (from sign or screen), opens a prompt in app for the sum, sign and done 3: Person-to-person, you enter their phone number(often from the phone book), amount and message, sign and done. The signing is done via the standard app that's al…

Just remember that all else being equal, UPI is still a far more impressive system. Here’s the reasons: 1. A 100x higher volume on a normal day. 2. A highly effective and equitable system that somehow managed to succeed in one of the most corrupt and beauracratic nations. 3. The majority of its users can barely read, if at all. Not to mention all the languages involved. UPI is impressive because it actually made a di…

> EDIT: also sounds like Swish charges a fee to the banks? Sounds a bit outrageous for a payment system trying to be the best in the world to charge a fee.

FWIW, NPCI charges all banks for UPI too. They’ve been eating most of those costs because the government didn’t allow them to charge (now those charges are slowly coming in). Banks haven’t been happy with the zero MDR regime for UPI.

Re: UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B

#166
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a lot more seamless. you just tap your credit card and that’s it.

This exists in India too. But people don't use it. Why take on debt if you don't need to? UPI is directly connected to your bank account. It does not go through VISA, Mastercard or whatever.

> UPI is directly connected to your bank account. It does not go through VISA, Mastercard or whatever.

This is technically incorrect. UPI is connected to NPCI, which runs the platform and charges the participating banks for this service. Same for RuPay cards by NPCI.

Re: UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B

#167
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interop with banking across SEA is pretty cool now, most countries have cross border payments with nothing more than a QR code. And this is down to the hawker stall level. It's advancing a lot quicker than you'd expect given that many of the countries aren't really that good at coordinating with each other.

why didn’t these countries go the NFC route instead of QR codes?

Some sellers don't have a smartphone/screen and rely on the honesty of the user (they just ask to show them the receipt). I don't know how they manage their wallet though (maybe their kid or a friend?).

Re: UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B

#168
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just remember that all else being equal, UPI is still a far more impressive system. Here’s the reasons: 1. A 100x higher volume on a normal day. 2. A highly effective and equitable system that somehow managed to succeed in one of the most corrupt and beauracratic nations. 3. The majority of its users can barely read, if at all. Not to mention all the languages involved. UPI is impressive because it actually made a di…

> EDIT: also sounds like Swish charges a fee to the banks? Sounds a bit outrageous for a payment system trying to be the best in the world to charge a fee. FWIW, NPCI charges all banks for UPI too. They’ve been eating most of those costs because the government didn’t allow them to charge (now those charges are slowly coming in). Banks haven’t been happy with the zero MDR regime for UPI.

According to here: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/money-and-banking/npci-...

Doesn’t apply for transactions less than ₹2000 ($24 usd). Might sound like a small amount but most Indian transactions won’t cross that. And the fee doesn’t apply to p2p anyway.

Re: UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B

#169
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All countries of SEA have similar systems (even Laos and Cambodia). The one managed by Malaysia now can work in Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia too. I think in the next 3-4 years, these wallets will support inter-change across all ASEAN.

Spending quite some time in both Malaysia and Thailand I can say that the support for cross country payments is still not great. I’m rarely able to use my Malaysian banking app (Maybank) to pay in Thailand. Most of the times when I tried the QR code is not recognized. Which means I still need to carry cash with me all the time.

For me it was 50/50 too. But this launched very recently. Here to hoping they fix their system.

Re: UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B

#170
post #10
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not everyone, I hate QR coded based payment systems but prefer Apple Pay, so the apps won’t have my camera access. Same applies when folks from China claiming Alipay or WeChat is the best payment system.

It’s not just QR. Plenty of other modes of payment supported including Whatsapp and Google. The government aggressively manages the system to prevent any single company from getting too much weight and forces them to address scams or other system occurs in almost real time by the threat of being thrown off the rails.

> The government aggressively manages the system to prevent any single company from getting too much weight and forces them to address scams or other system occurs in almost real time by the threat of being thrown off the rails.

It’s actually shocking that only a few years ago RBI was concerned about concentration risk of having NPCI (the platform operator of UPI) and invited proposals from banks and companies for NUE (New Umbrella Entity) licenses. Then something changed and it canceled all those proposals.

NPCI has a monopoly on instant fund transfers (leaving aside the RBI run RTGS). NPCI wants to limit concentration risk among its clients by trying to push for lower market share among competitors within its platform, like Google Pay or WhatsApp Pay.

As for scams, there are plenty of them on UPI every single day, and there’s no way to get any fraudulently transferred funds back without filing a police complaint and waiting for them to do their jobs (and greasing their palms depending on the amount for the job to be done).

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