UPI was ahead of net banking and other card-based payments by a margin during 2020, and Indian consumers are steadily moving towards adopting it.

September 2021 saw a record ₹6.54 crore worth of transactions via the UPI medium. A steep 2x jump was observed compared to the numbers for the same period in 2020. Even the number of banks that support UPI rose by 50%, from 174 to 259.

What is UPI?

A report released by Macquarie stated that UPI payments formed 10% of all retail payments made in the first four months of 2021. The growth is phenomenal, considering its share was limited to only 2% a few years ago.

In 2016, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) collaborated with the RBI (central bank of India) and the IBA (Indian Banks Association) to develop a modern payment solution that would enable banks to transfer funds for individual account holders seamlessly. The collaboration resulted in the development of the UPI platform.

The unified payment interface or UPI is a banking interface that allows users to transfer money between bank accounts via a single window. It is an advanced version of IMPS and NEFT and looks to eliminate the need for the users to enter their credentials every time before making a transaction.

Features of UPI Payments

UPI looks to eliminate the clutter around digital payments. Here are the key features of UPI payments: 

Reliable

A significant chunk of our digital payments would fail or take longer than expected to process a few years back. It left us fuming, and we were looking for an innovative solution. With the advent of UPI, reliability became one of the most prominent features of digital payments. It brought about greater control for the users and eliminated the need to maintain multiple third-party apps for different purposes. 

Real-time Transactions

NEFTs in the old days would take some hours to transfer funds across bank accounts, and that was the fastest during its time. With UPI, transfers take place in real-time. All the customer needs to do is click on the pay button, verify their credentials, and complete the payment within seconds. It has allowed customers to use digital payments for various daily tasks, such as buying medicines, vegetables, paying for their Uber drive, and more. 

No Floor Limit on Transactions

How would we like our digital bank payments to be? We would like to see something that could process any amount required (subject to an upper limit for security purposes). That is what UPI does. It allows users to transfer as low as INR 1 with ease. Find out more about the UPI transaction limit here.

No Transaction Charges

RTGS and NEFT were criticized because they had charges attached to them. With UPI, you can send any amount you wish without having to pay a single penny. It allows for a clutter-free and convenient experience for the users. 

Inclusive

Do you have only an app that supports UPI? Great, it works. Are you suffering from a lack of internet connectivity and still wish to make UPI payments? Thankfully, that is possible too. All you need to do is send a specific message enabling the bank to carry out the transaction on your behalf. It has allowed people living in areas with limited connectivity to adopt digital payments seamlessly. 

Check this blog to find out how to create UPI Id.

How Does UPI ID Work?

If you want to carry out a UPI transaction, you will need a VPA or virtual payment address (for example – Joedempo@oksbi). You can link multiple bank accounts to the same VPA for carrying out UPI transactions. But how does it work? Well, various entities come together to ensure a successful transfer of funds. 

Here are the entities involved in carrying out a successful UPI transaction: 

Payment Service Provider (PSP)

Apps like BHIM and others are available at the consumer’s end to initiate and complete a UPI transaction. NPCI issues certificates to specific apps allowing them to carry on UPI-based transactions and issuing UPI handles. At present, there are over 20 third-party apps that can undertake UPI transactions. 

NPCI

NPCI is funded by a plethora of banks across the country and is a non-profit organization. RBI formulated it to facilitate data flow between banks and ensure that the payment is routed via the allowed mediums. The user can register for all these apps and create a different UPI ID to help users in solving their issues with UPI payments. 

Sender’s Bank

The next party involved in a UPI transaction is the sender’s bank or the issuing bank. These bodies receive a request from NPCI to debit money from the sender’s account. Once the debit is complete, the sender’s bank intimates that the transaction has been processed. 

Receiver’s Bank

The receiver bank or the acquiring bank is responsible for crediting the money in the receiver’s account of a UPI request. Once they credit the requisite account, they send an intimation to NPCI confirming the successful credit. 

Payee Payment Service Provider (Payee PSP)

Merchants use the payee payment service provider or payee PSP for P2M (payment to merchant) transactions. 

Partner with PayU India for effortless UPI transactions

The UPI is a robust payment infrastructure that has been instrumental in streamlining digital payments and making them accessible to all. Its working is simple and clutter-free, allowing it to be inclusive and play a significant role in the Indian government’s digital drive. 

But it is also imperative for businesses to partner with a capable UPI partner to make receipt and payment seamless via this medium. At PayU India, we understand the need for you to create a robust online presence. We allow a one-click, no coding, no developer, secure solution to seamlessly integrate with your existing payment infrastructure and undertake UPI transactions with ease. Click here to explore our services. 

The post What Is A UPI ID? How Does It Work? appeared first on PayU Blog.

1. Employees (salaries, reimbursements, etc.)
2. Vendors (sellers, resellers, etc.)
3. Partners (delivery partners, manufacturers, etc.)
4. Customers (refunds, cashbacks, etc.)

When you look at your account statement, there are credit and debit entries. PayU Payouts can help in facilitating all these debit transactions.

Every business has its own nuances and its own specific requirements. While PayU Payouts has multiple features to address these requirements, it is very important for the merchants to know the various ways in which they can manage their funds. In this article, we will deep dive into the multiple types of accounts for sourcing your payouts:

1. Virtual Current Account

Here the underlying bank account is PayU’s current account. A virtual account is created on top of this account and every merchant is provided with a unique virtual account number (Example –PAYUIC1111101). The IFSC code for this virtual account is that of the bank branch in which PayU’s underlying current account exists. A merchant can have multiple virtual bank accounts in the same bank or in different banks. Merchants can add money to this virtual account by doing a simple bank transfer. Once the funds are in their virtual current account(s), they can simply send payouts using the PayU dashboard or APIs. This account is perfect for use cases where the funds are not directly coming from a digital purchase or an online transaction. Examples of such use cases are COD (cash-on-delivery) refunds, salary disbursals, etc.

2. Virtual Nodal Account

Here the underlying bank account is PayU’s nodal account. The process for virtual account creation and unique VAN generation is the same as above. The only difference is that merchants can receive settlements of their online transactions in this account which is not permitted in the case of a virtual current account. The settlements can be from PayU payment gateway or any other payment gateway in the market. Once the funds are in their virtual nodal account, they can simply send payouts using the PayU dashboard or APIs. This account is perfect for use cases where funds are directly coming from an online transaction. Examples of such use cases are refunds for transactions, rewards against gaming purchases, etc.

3. Connected Bank Account

Here, there is no virtual account. Merchant’s own bank account can be used for sourcing the payouts using PayU dashboard or PayU APIs. The merchant can link their existing bank account or open a new bank account in one of the PayU partner banks. Once the connected banking is enabled on the merchant’s bank account, the funds can directly be used to process payouts. Here there is no need to transfer funds to any virtual account (manually or via settlement). PayU is not involved in fund management here and it just acts as a technology service provider. This account is perfect for use cases where the merchants can depend solely on their own bank but they want freedom from the hassle of maintaining balance in a virtual account.

4. Virtual Transit Account

This particular type of account is a hybrid of virtual and real bank accounts. Here also the underlying bank account is PayU’s current account. Parallelly a transit account is also created in the merchant’s own name. The process for virtual account creation, unique VAN generation, the addition of funds is same as mentioned above in the first pointer. The payouts are initiated from the merchant’s virtual current account only, but the funds flow to the beneficiary via this transit account which is created in the merchant’s name. From the usability perspective, payouts can be triggered using the PayU dashboard and APIs the same as in the first pointer. This account is perfect for use cases where merchants want to hide PayU’s name from the beneficiary.

Merchants can have 1 or all of the above types of accounts based on their needs. While there are some basic differences in all these types, there are some standard functionalities that are available across all account types:

1. Remark in Beneficiary Bank Statement – Merchants can send some descriptions for every payout transaction that they initiate. For example, if the merchant’s name is XYZ and they are disbursing salary for the month of August, they can send a custom remark as “XYZ/Salary/Aug”. This remark will be visible in the beneficiary’s bank statement as well as other communications (SMS, Email, App Notification) depending on the beneficiary’s bank
2. Webhook Notifications –Merchants can set notifications that they want to receive from PayU. For example, they can set low balance alert notifications based on custom thresholds, they can receive the status of NEFT transactions, etc.
3. Queuing and Scheduling Payouts – In case of insufficient balance in their accounts, merchants can choose to queue their payout requests. In that case, payouts will be triggered whenever the funds are replenished. Similarly, merchants can schedule a payout for any time in the future.

No matter what your Payout need is, PayU has a solution to fulfill them. Feel free to reach out to us to understand what type of account meets your requirements for paying out to your beneficiaries. Check out our integration document here. PayU Payouts is India’s fastest growing payout product. To start using our products and services,

The post Use the Right Type of Bank Account for all your Payout Needs appeared first on PayU Blog.

About GrabOn

Started in 2013 with just a 5-member team, GrabOn is now India’s #1 coupons and deals marketplace. Their priority is to help the average Indian save on everything while shopping online.

Online gifting is one area where GrabOn noticed shoppers can use exclusive discounts and better user experience. Hence, they decided to diversify into the e-gift cards and vouchers space.

How PayU helped GrabOn Accelerate Transactions Growth

Before their partnership with PayU, GrabOn was getting constant complaints regarding glitch in the payment getaway services leading to incomplete transactions and customers abandoning their cart. Therefore, it was extremely important for them to integrate a payment gateway that helps provide a smooth checkout to the customers and is highly secure.

After integrating PayU payment gateway on their website, it increased its sales and transaction success rates. The company noticed a 300% spike in transactions with a remarkable 0% failure rate, within a quarter!

GrabOn uses PayU dashboard to view their business performance and resolve any payment related issues without further escalations.

The Future of GrabOn with PayU

With 400+ clients and over a million transactions so far, GrabOn Gift Cards has already been generating a positive buzz all around. As a part of their ongoing projects, GrabOn has been looking at loyalty programs, specifically integrating subscription plan with their Gift Cards service.

PayU’s Subscriptions feature allows merchants to set up and manage recurrent payments effortlessly. Also, PayU merchants can collect recurring payments via e-NACH.

“We aim to provide an unmatched gift card purchase experience to our current and prospective users with the help of our payment partner, PayU. At present, we have been exploring opportunities and considering branch expansion along with launching our own line of products and inventory with the help of PayU,” said Ashok.

“PayU has helped us immensely in recording successful transactions and tapping every problem that our customers face. We are looking forward to using PayU’s features for further growth in our business,” he added.

To provide a seamless checkout experience to customers and grow their business, GrabOn continues to trust PayU at every single step. With more than 3.5 lakh merchants, PayU is India’s leading all-in-one payment solution. Now to enjoy the best payment gateway experience and grow your business effortlessly,

The post GrabOn sees 300% Increase in Transactions with PayU appeared first on PayU Blog.