NPCI introduces UPI AutoPay feature for recurring payments

Digital payment and settlement systems body National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched the functionality of UPI AutoPay for recurring payments.

The new facility lets customers enable e-mandate using any UPI (unified payments interface) application for recurring payments such as mobile bills, electricity bills, EMI (equated monthly installment) payments, entertainment/OTT (over the top) subscriptions, insurance, mutual funds and loan payments, paying for transit/metro payments among others of up to Rs 2,000.

If the amount exceeds Rs 2000, customers have to execute every mandate with UPI PIN, according to a statement.  

Any UPI-enabled application would also have a ‘mandate’ section, through which customers can create, approve, modify, pause as well as revoke auto debit mandates. The mandate section will allow customers to view their past instructions for their reference and records. UPI users can create e-mandate through UPI ID, QR scan or Intent.

“The pattern for auto debit mandate has been created keeping in mind customers’ spends on recurring payments. The mandates can be set for one-time, daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, half yearly and yearly,” the statement said.   

The customers have to authenticate their account through UPI PIN for one-time and subsequent monthly payments would be debited automatically.

“UPI being the one stop destination for customers’ day-to-day spends, acts as a backbone of digital India. Introducing UPI AutoPay on UPI is a testament of continuous innovation in the digital payments space. This was also one of the key recommendations of the RBI Committee on Deepening of Digital Payments,” Nandan Nilekani, chairman and co-founder of Infosys said.

Some of the banks, merchants and aggregators who have already gone live with UPI AutoPay include Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, Furlenco, Growfitter, Policy Bazaar, Paytm, PayU, RazorPay among others.  

“The launch of UPI AutoPay is a step ahead in India’s journey towards digitization. We have been witnessing a lot of changes in the way customers are making recurring payments over the last few years. The UPI AutoPay offering would provide millions of UPI user’s convenience and safety while making recurring payments. We believe this facility will not only benefit customers but also merchants with an all-new recurring payments experience,” Dilip Asbe, MD and CEO of NPCI said.

Founded in 2008, NPCI is an umbrella organisation to operate retail payments and settlement systems. Its other offerings include RuPay Card, Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM), BHIM Aadhaar, National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) and Bharat BillPay.

UPI developed by NPCI has emerged as one of the most favoured modes of online payments, with a billion transactions almost every month in the recent past.

Last month NPCI released data which revealed that UPI transactions volume rose to 1.23 billion -- an increase of 24% in May compared to the previous month.

In March, NPCI announced that it would allow customers to withdraw cash at merchant stores via UPI platform.

It was also in the news recently for setting up its own national data centre in Chennai.