With an aim to transform India into a digital economy, the government is planning to unveil the United Payment Interface (UPI) and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) platforms with new features. The newer version of the UPI and USSD platforms will enable customers to transact digitally either with or without an internet connection.
In a week, the new easier-to-use application for UPI would be launched and will feature a single app that a user can download to transact across various banks. Also, the USSD platform will be upgraded which enable banking through feature phones. However, the new app will not replace the existing ones. It will be in the form of a skeletal version of the apps already present, with basic features such as ability to send or receive money, linking of accounts, saving profile of the user, changing the language, recording beneficiary details and providing balance enquiry.
According to NPCI’s Managing Director AP Hota, which hosts the two platforms and handles all retail payments in the country, the number of UPI transactions has doubled to 70,000 with 4.2 million registered users. Hota believes that in the new version of UPI app, more functions will be added in the hope that instead of upgrading their individual apps, the banks will switch to the common app. With regards to the USSD platform, NPCI wants to integrate it with UPI because the biggest challenge with this platform so far has been that bulk of the transactions did not involve transfer of money. However, now 5000 transactions per day on USSD involve transfer of money.