The National Payment Corporation of India’s (NPCI) Unified Payment Interface (UPI) wants to make small value transactions through UPI offline. This is called ‘UPI lite – On-Device wallet’.
Salient features
- UPI Lite is said to be the feature phone version, specifically for low-denomination transactions.
- Given that about 75 per cent of the total volume of retail transactions in India are below Rs 100 each and 50 per cent of UPI transactions are for Rs 200 each, UPI Lite will initially target transactions of Rs 200 or less.
- At present, only debit from UPI lite balance shall be permitted and all credits to UPI lite (including refunds, etc.) will be processed online in the user’s bank account.
- UPI Lite is an ‘on device wallet’. Here, users will have to allocate funds from their bank accounts to the app and the amount will be parked in the user’s bank in an escrow or pool or designated account for the app.
- The UPI Lite balance limit is set at Rs 2,000. While payments are possible in an offline mode, you would need internet connectivity to replenish funds using an additional factor authentication (AFA) or through UPI AutoPay, which needs to be registered online using an AFA.
- The upper limit for payment is currently Rs 200.
- Unlike UPI 123Pay, UPI Lite enables QR code-based payment even offline. UPI 123Pay is largely an interactive voice response or IVR based technology, though it also has app based functionality, proximity sound based payments and enabling payments through a missed call.
(Sources: BL and IE)
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