5 New Features of the Updated UPI That You Should Know

The latest and second version of the Unified Payments Interface or UPI was launched in Mumbai by RBI governor Urjit Patel. UPI powers many largely used payment apps like Tez, BHIM, WhatsApp Pay, etc. The usage of UPI based apps has increased manifolds since its launch in 2016, gaining popularity due to the ease of use. The new updates made were also an effort to encourage more customer to merchant transactions that are very low at present.

Here are 5 new updates to your UPI apps that you should be aware of:

Transaction Cap Doubled

The transaction limit in the UPI 2.0 has been doubled to Rs 2 lakh. As per a statement made by the NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) the member banks of the updated UPI are State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, RBL Bank, YES Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, Federal Bank and HSBC as of now.

Overdraft

Apart from your savings account you will now be able to link an overdraft account to your payment app to make transactions instantly through credit borrowing. The UPI 2.0 will basically become an additional medium to access your overdraft account.

One Time Mandate

The UPI Mandate can be used by customers as well as merchants to make commitments for future payments. The mandate allows one-time blocking functionality for future payment towards the transaction. For example, a cab facility can block the predetermined fare of the travel at the passenger's wallet and the payment will take place once the trip is complete.

It can also be used during an IPO (Initial Public Offering) to buy stocks.

Signed intent and QR

To provide additional security, this feature will allow users to scan QR codes to check if the merchant is a verified UPI merchant. A notification will be sent to the user if the merchant is not a verified user. It will help the customer check the authenticity of the merchant.

Invoice

With this feature, an invoice will be sent to the customer from the merchant that the user can look at before making any payment. This way the user has time to verify if the payment is being made to the right merchant and the amount is as informed to them.