Unified Payment Interface-Usage Examples and Samples

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella organisation for all retail payments system in the country has launched the next generation online payments solution - Unified Payments Interface (UPI) which will leverage trends such as increasing smartphone adoption and deeper penetration of mobile data. UPI empowers users to perform instant push and pull transactions seamlessly which will transform the way people make payments.

About UPI

UPI is a unique payment solution as the recipient is now empowered to initiate the payment request from a smartphone. It facilitates "virtual address" as a payment identifier for sending and collecting money and works on single click 2 factor authentication. It also provides an option for scheduling push and pull transactions for various purposes like sharing bills among peers. One can use UPI app instead of paying cash on delivery on receipt of product from online shopping websites and can perform miscellaneous expenses like paying utility bills, over the counter payments, barcode (scan and pay) based payments, donations, school fees and other such unique and innovative use cases.

The interface is the advanced version of NPCI's Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) which is a 24*7*365 funds transfer service. UPI will offer a facility to identify a bank customer with an email - like virtual address. It will allow a customer to have multiple virtual addresses for multiple accounts in various banks. In order to ensure privacy of customer‟s data, there is no account number mapper anywhere other than the customer's own bank. This allows the customer to freely share the financial address with others. A customer can also decide to use the mobile number as the name instead of the short name for the virtual address like 1234567890@sbi.

Usage Examples

The Unified Payment Interface allows payments to be initiated by the payer, or by the payee. In the basic payee initiated flows, the payment request is routed by the initiating application through the NPCI switch to the payer for approval. However, in certain instances, where it is possible to connect with the payer immediately, it is preferred that the payee sends a payment request to the payer, who can then initiate the payment request with his credentials.

This leads to a significantly smoother payment experience. Some examples of these include in-app payments–where the merchant app, may send the request to the PSP app on the same device, instead of a collect request via the PSP network. Another example may be for proximity payments, where the payer and payee are using different devices, but are close enough for the information to be transmitted locally.

Example 1: Seamless in - app payment within the same mobile of the user.

• Ashok is a student and uses a video application (MyStar) that allows buying on-demand movie on his Android phone.
• He banks with DiBank (PSP in this case) and uses their mobile application for Android that has implemented UPI features.
• In MyStar app, Ash ok wants to watch a movie for Rs.25.
• My Star application creates the UPI payment link as per this spec and launches the Android intent with all necessary parameters populated in the URL.
• Since DiBank PSP app is registered to listen to UPI link/intent, it starts the app and takes Ashok straight to pay screen with all values pre-populated from the link/intent.
• Ashok verifies the info on screen and click pay to complete the payment.

Example 2 : DTH payment from home.

• Nadeem subscribes to DTH in his house and wants to make a payment for on-demand subscription.
• Nadeem selects the channel and clicks “buy now”.
• DTH shows the details along with a QR code for UPI payment.
• Nadeem opens his UPI application on his mobile and scans the QR code on the TV screen.
• UPI application takes him straight to pay screen with all values pre-populated from the QR code which contained the standard UPI link.
• He verifies the info on screen and click pay to complete the payment.
• He  gets  a  confirmation  on  his  mobile  and  the  TV  channel is  automatically  turned on for him to view.

Implementation Samples

Hyperlink

The user goes to an ecommerce web site (Rohit Stores) on his mobile phone, and places an order. The website generates a link, which the user can click on, to complete the payment.As per the specification, the link contains the payee details, the transaction reference (order id), and the amount to be paid.

Example:

upi://paypa=zeeshan@npci&pn=Zeeshan%Khan&mc=0000&tid=cxnkjcnkjdfdvjndkjfvn&tr=4894398 cndhcd23&tn=Pay%to%rohit%stores&am=1010&cu=INR&refUrl=https://rohit.com/orderid=9298yw 89e8973e87389e78923ue892

When  the  user  clicks  on  the  link  on  his  mobile  browser,  it  invokes  the  local  PSP application, where the user can confirm the details, and complete the payment.

Because  of  the  design  simplicity,  user  familiarity  with  hyperlinks,  and  the  ease  of  sharing,  such  links  can  be  generated  and shared  across  multiple  communication channels, such as email, chat, and social networks.

QR code

QR code consists   of   black   modules   arranged   in   a   square   pattern   on   a   white background.  The  information  encoded  can  be  made  up  of  four  standardized  kinds (“modes”)  of  data  (numeric,  alphanumeric,  byte/binary,  Kanji),  or  by  supported extensions virtually any kind of data.

QR codes can be used for proximity payments with UPI. Developers who are developing   merchant   applications   must   generate   a   URL   fully   compliant to specification in previous section and then create a QR code of that URL.

Example:

upi://paypa=zeeshan@npci&pn=Zeeshan%Khan&mc=0000&tid=cxnkjcnkjdfdvjndkjfvn&tr=4894398 cndhcd23&tn=Pay%to%rohit%stores&am=1010&cu=INR&refUrl=https://rohit.com/orderid=9298 yw 89e8973e87389e78923ue892

Note to PSPs:

Considering  the  simplicity,  openness,  and  wide  acceptance  of  QR  codes and  its ability  to  be  printed,  displayed  on  PoS  devices,  and  various  screens,  etc., PSP  applications  are encouraged to include a QR code scan option within their UPI application.So that customers can use a single app to scan and pay.

Others

UPI  linking  is  protocol  agnostic  and  hence  allows  innovative  mechanisms  between Merchant/proximity devices to send UPI intent to customer phone. For  example,  a  merchant PoS  application  could  create  the  UPI  link  (as  per  spec  in previous  section)  and  then transmit  using  sound  to  the  customer  device.  Customer PSP app or a utility app can listen to that sound, convert it back to the link, and then launch the UPI application on customer phone to make the payment. Note that there can be 3rd party general purpose utility applications that allows users to scan these QR codes, launch the link, allow other innovative transfer protocols using sound, etc. Such apps can work as a proxy utility that sends/receives these links and then launch the appropriate apps that are listening to these intents.

Source: National Payment Corporation of India