ICICI Bank, on Tuesday announced the launch of 'Unified Payments Interface' (UPI) on two of its customer facing mobile banking applications - 'Pockets' and 'iMobile'.

UPI enables bank account holders (of banks participating in UPI) to send and receive money using a Virtual Payment Address (VPA) without entering additional bank account details.

UPI is available on 'iMobile', the bank's mobile banking application for its customers and on 'Pockets', its digital bank for peer-to-peer and e-commerce payments by users including non-ICICI Bank customers.

It is the simplest mode of making payments that aims to provide users with the convenience of completing transactions in lesser steps than earlier, thereby reducing the transaction time. Anyone, including non-ICICI Bank customers can access UPI by creating their VPA on 'Pockets'.

For using UPI, both 'Pockets' and 'iMobile' users need to create their own Virtual Payment Address (VPA; 'xyz@pockets' & 'xyz@icici' respectively ) on one of ICICI Bank's mobile application. This will link the VPA to the customer's bank account.

The VPA acts as their financial address without having to reveal the 16 digit bank account number and the 11 digit IFSC code. Once registered for VPA, users can send & receive payments instantly from any bank account using their mobile phone instantly in a safe and secure way.

They will also be able to make payments to merchants from their mobile phones where UPI is accepted as a payment mode. Users can make payments using UPI 24x7 on all days including bank holidays upto a maximum of Rs 1 lakh. Users on 'Pockets' can link their bank accounts with other banks (who are also on UPI) and make payments from that account as well using their VPA on 'Pockets'.

The upgraded 'Pockets' & 'iMobile' application comprising the UPI system is available on the Google Play Store for smartphones with Android operating systems. It will soon be available on the iOS operating system as well.

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