UPI Payments: 10B transactions a month done, next stop 100B • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by igetspam » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:13 PM UTC

n_ary wrote: post #49

sidcool wrote: post #2

The scale of UPI payments is unprecedented. Perhaps the best payment system in the world by far. My friends who come from US are always awe struck by the pervasiveness and easy of use of UPI payments. They want it so bad in the West!

Not sure about US, here in Germany, I really love the tap-pay(NFC based) usually everywhere(except some random kebab shops). It simply works regardless of me having an Android/iPhone or simply just a the nfc enabled card. I don’t need to open another account, fumble with one-more-app or anything. Also apple-pay appears to mask my CC/DC number as well, so better safety. I want it everywhere badly in west as well as ea…

We opted fo chip-and-sign over chip-and-pin, so it's probably safe to assume that everything we do is a touch less smooth and safe.

Then again, we don't really the regulation framework for making me feel like cell phones are a safe way to move money around. (Because I have trust issues with tech.)

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

#242

Post by pcthrowaway » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:14 PM UTC

chx wrote: post #113

ETH_start wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only fundamental difference inherent to the respective designs of blockchains and traditional banking, is censorship resistance through genuine self-custody. The former is designed to provide this quality, and the latter is not. Put another way, there is nothing inherently scammy in using a distributed blockchain to record balances, and cryptography to authenticate updates to the balances. While opening the door…

> is censorship resistance through genuine self-custody. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2018/04/05/debunking-bu... > Ordinary person: “Your weird Internet money sucks to use. It’s slow and expensive. I lost my coins by mistake and it can’t be fixed. If I get hacked it can’t be fixed either.” > Bitcoin advocate: “But everyone wants [list of ideological aims held only by weird people]! Everyone I know, anyway.” B…

Centralized exchanges are not "blockchain" they're more like Venmo

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

#243

Post by sudshekhar » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:14 PM UTC

egghese wrote: post #95

egghese wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPI is an impressive system, I use it often and it is quite empowering for billions of Indians. But calling it the "best payment system in the world"! And west wants it so bad sounds like blind exaggerations. United States is not the only western country. Scandinavian countries has Swish (2012), Vipps (2013), and Mobile pay (2015), Canada has Interac.

Not interested on flamewars here. Reading this thread it looks like merits of system is upon peoples arbitrary metrics based on varying perspectives. So a constructive discussion is not going to happen. So until there is some standardised comparison probably making any statements about merits or demerits, including mine are just opinions without facts.

Comparing payment systems is obviously not easy.

However, I've spent a lot of time studying the payments space (7+ years now!) and I'll quickly give you 3 reasons why UPI is "better" than Interrac for example :

1) Better User Experience

Systems like Interrac enable instant bank to bank transfers. However, they don't allow for third party applications to initiate payment requests / view balances. Customers are restricted to choosing a bank and sticking with the user experience defined by the bankers.

UPI , on the other hand, mandates banks to accept and honor payment requests generated from "Third-party payment application providers (TPAPs)"

This allows for a much larger variety of payment experiences to be designed, which can be "fit on top" of the existing banking layer.

PSD2 regulations, in Europe tried to achieve this effect, however most banks ended up implementing a custom version of the protocol instead of adoption a common standard.

2) Lower costs

Adoption of the UPI payments system has massively reduced the cost of sending money anywhere across India.

For Indian banks, the cost of sending money via UPI is wayy less than the "Gas fees" required to facilitate crypto transactions or the fees charged by VISA/MC networks to facilitate transactions.

Similarly, costs for a merchant to accept UPI payments are much lesser than accepting any other form of digital payment today (in India and maybe the world).

3) Federated Architecture

From Day-1, the UPI ecosystem has been design to support multiple switch providers, payment institutions and local regulations.

If countries like France, adopt UPI, they won't have to depend on centralized servers hosted in India to run their payments technology.

All their data can be hosted in servers within the country and the UPI instance facilitating French transactions can be tailored to honor local regulations and limits.

This flexibility is not as easy to implement with older payment systems (like VISA/MC).

--------------------

Much of this can also be attributed to the fact that the other payment systems were developed 15+ years ago.

The recently launched, FedNow system adopts a similar approach to UPI. Will be interesting to see how it evolves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obbpLGVoVxI

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

#244

Post by signal11 » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:14 PM UTC

vinay_ys wrote: post #235

signal11 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those (before airport security) don’t perform UPI onboarding for foreign tourists. The usually-solitary shop/desk that does this is present in select airports for international arrivals (not departures) and needs to be used before you leave the secure area. And oh, good luck finding it staffed if your flight arrives outside business hours. Your meta-point though is “oh there’s a workaround” or “if you go through hoop…

hey, I'm just trying to be helpful for visiting foreigners. I don't have any need to defend UPI on HN and moreover UPI needs no defending, its stats speak for itself.

Except the ‘helpful’ steps you mentioned don’t really work. (Another commenter linked to some up and coming apps which are far more promising[1], I’d definitely urge interested folk to look into those.)

> moreover UPI needs no defending, its stats speak for itself.

The law of large numbers applies to UPI like it does to almost everything in India: you’ll get huge numbers which look good on slides.

In reality, UPI is a bit above 10% of India’s cash transaction volume, so yeah, the reality of “UPI is ubiquitous” isn’t quite there yet.

And “UPI needs no defending” is the exact uncritical thinking I expect when there’s any forum discussion of UPI. The thread started with people saying UPI doesn’t work for tourists & short term visitors, which I believe is valid criticism.

There are many other criticisms of UPI, including and especially the governance around it. (On a more optimistic note, all of this is fixable.) But that’s for you to figure out if you’re interested!

[1] https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/JDX-cheq-upi-digital-pa...

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

#245

Post by signal11 » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:19 PM UTC

sudshekhar wrote: post #208

signal11 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) is somewhat impractical, because it’s easy to miss the airport desk which does this, and if you miss the opportunity it’s not easy to go back there (Indian airports don’t really allow you back in if you’ve exited) 2) opening an account isn’t practical for tourists, but of course if you’re living in India for even a short while, it’s worth it. 3) Allegedly UPI will work for NRIs / OCIs with foreign phone numbers. I…

Mentioned this on the parent thread, but there are new UPI apps coming out in the market which don't need a bank account. https://chequpi.com/ For example

This looks really promising, thank you. (And oh, it’s a YC company!)

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7094460...

Is there a page which lists others like this?

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

#246

Post by flangola7 » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:21 PM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #163

Mandatum wrote: post #131

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.

Rarely has anything better? What does that mean?

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

#247

Post by beebeepka » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:24 PM UTC

gsa wrote: post #220

gruez wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is a scam going on in India. Random females, who are either naked or scantily clothed, will call up on WhatsApp Video. If you pick up the call, say while in the bathroom and not fully clothed, they will take screenshots and threaten you that they will make that picture “viral” to extort money. This is baffling. First, how much % of the day do you spend naked? 1-2%? So the success rate of any given call is goin…

> So the success rate of any given call is going to be 1-2% at most, given that otherwise theres nothing scandalous to post OP didn't mention it explicitly, however, chatting with a scantily clad person on the other end can be used as blackmail material too no matter what state of dress you are in.

Crazy that a country as populous is acting so prudent.

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

#248

Post by _xnmw » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:24 PM UTC

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #31

For the uninformed, is this like the Interac system in Canada?

Not nearly as convenient. Do you use Interac to pay for a $1.50 coffee regularly straight from your phone? Send money to a friend without needing to exchange emails/phone/passwords? Be completely fee-less no matter what bank you use? Not require "acceptance" on the other end? Be notified and require approval before a merchant can debit your account? From what I understand, UPI has all of these things and Interac does not.

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

#249

Post by Eisenstein » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:26 PM UTC

bheadmaster wrote: post #189

nopinsight wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accidents and health problems are not completely predictable for an individual, but the rates are for different groups of people. As long as it’s within their power to choose, they should accept the consequences that come with their choices. If all your neighbors play extreme sports or drive drunk all the time, would you like to pay the same premium as they do in the same insurance pool? It’s an established practice…

> If all your neighbors play extreme sports or drive drunk all the time, would you like to pay the same premium as they do in the same insurance pool? Yes, because choosing otherwise opens the door to discrimination based on many factors, many of which can be completely out of our control. What if you're working a job with a non-insignificant risk of danger - should your premiums be higher? After all, you chose to wo…

Let's take this a step further and make it so everyone has to pay for insurance, the insurance fee is based on income and not choices, and everyone is covered equally.

Also, since it will all be managed by the same insurance vendor, then they can negotiate better prices in the market and make the system more efficient. Of course this will have to be highly regulated in order to make it fair. We could ensure this by having the major policies be managed by officials who are accountable to the public via a voucher system -- if the official makes bad decisions they get a 'no confidence voucher' and someone else who wants the job will get a shot at it.

This system would be far from perfect, but it would probably be better than paying corporations to run it when they are incentivized to provide only enough service to meet market and legal requirements and pocket the rest -- while showing shareholders consistent profit increases, which can't be tenable.

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

#250

Post by konschubert » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:29 PM UTC

beebeepka wrote: post #247

gsa wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the success rate of any given call is going to be 1-2% at most, given that otherwise theres nothing scandalous to post OP didn't mention it explicitly, however, chatting with a scantily clad person on the other end can be used as blackmail material too no matter what state of dress you are in.

Crazy that a country as populous is acting so prudent.

How so?