Unified Payments Interface (UPI)

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is India’s real-time retail payment system, operated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) as a payment system authorised by the Reserve Bank of India under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act 2007 , that moves money between bank accounts instantly through a mobile app using a UPI ID in place of an account number and IFSC.

UPI processed 24,161.69 crore transactions worth Rs 314.23 lakh crore in FY2025-26, against 1.78 crore transactions in FY2016-17, according to a Ministry of Finance reply in the Lok Sabha published by PIB on 20 July 2026 and PIB release 2302657 of 24 August 2026. In July 2026 it handled 2,365.8 crore transactions worth Rs 29.87 lakh crore across 741 live banks (PIB factsheet, 24 August 2026), and it carried 84 per cent of India’s digital payments by volume in FY2025-26.

For the retail investor, UPI is also the payment leg of the capital market. Every individual IPO bid up to Rs 5 lakh placed through a broker or other intermediary must be paid through a UPI mandate under SEBI circular SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2022/45 of 5 April 2022, broker pay-ins and SIP instalments can run on it, and a merchant charge of 0.02 per cent on payments to mutual funds and brokers, announced for 15 October 2026, was postponed by NPCI on that date.

Launch and adoption, 2016 to 2026

UPI went live as a pilot on 11 April 2016 with 21 member banks, launched in Mumbai by RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, and opened to the public from 25 August 2016, when banks began publishing UPI apps on the Google Play Store (Digital India portal; PIB factsheet, 24 August 2026). PIB records 90,000 transactions in August 2016, the first month of public use.

Before UPI, a retail customer had IMPS , which NPCI launched in 2010 and which needed the payee’s account number and IFSC or a mobile number and MMID; NEFT , which then settled in batches during banking hours; and RTGS for large values. Wallets were closed loops: money in one could not be paid to a customer of another. UPI put a common address and a common app interface over every bank’s account.

The growth record, from the PIB factsheet of 24 August 2026 and the Ministry of Finance reply of 20 July 2026:

Source: PIB factsheet “UPI: Transforming India’s Payment Landscape”, 24 August 2026; PIB release 2302657, 24 August 2026; RBI Bulletin, 11 September 2018, for the UPI 2.0 launch.

The demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes announced on 8 November 2016 came 75 days after the public launch. NPCI’s monthly series for that period was not readable at a primary source, so no monthly figure for late 2016 is stated here.

How a UPI payment works

A UPI payment is an instruction from the payer’s app, through NPCI’s central switch, that debits the payer’s bank account and credits the payee’s account in real time, authorised by the payer’s registered device and UPI PIN. The payee never sees the payer’s account number, and the payer never needs the payee’s.

Participants

A UPI transaction involves up to five parties:

1. The payer’s app, either a bank’s own app or a third-party application provider (TPAP) such as PhonePe, Google Pay or Paytm.
2. The payer’s payment service provider (PSP) bank, which runs or sponsors the app and authenticates the payer. A TPAP operates only under the sponsorship of one or more PSP banks; see Payment Service Provider (PSP) bank .
3. NPCI’s UPI switch, which resolves the UPI ID to an account, routes the debit and credit, and records the obligation for settlement.
4. The remitter bank, where the payer’s account sits, which debits it.
5. The beneficiary bank, where the payee’s account sits, which credits it.

Often the PSP bank and the account-holding bank are the same bank, which shortens the chain by one party.

The UPI ID

A UPI ID, also called a virtual payment address (VPA), takes the form name@handle. The handle identifies the PSP bank or app that issued it, and one bank account can carry several UPI IDs across several apps. To register, a customer selects the bank linked to the mobile number on record, and the app sends an SMS from that SIM to verify the device. The customer then sets a UPI PIN with debit card details and an OTP, or, since 2025, with Aadhaar-based face authentication (PIB factsheet, 24 August 2026).

Push, pull, QR and mandate flows

• Push (pay): the payer enters the payee’s UPI ID, mobile number or account and IFSC, and approves with the UPI PIN.
• Pull (collect): the payee, typically a merchant, sends a collect request, and the payer approves or declines it in the app. Approving a collect request authorises a debit from the payer. Secondary reports describe an NPCI notification, NPCI/UPI/OC/220/2025-26 of 29 July 2025, ending person-to-person collect requests from 1 October 2025; NPCI’s circulars could not be read at source, so that change is not stated here as confirmed.
• QR: the payer scans a static or dynamic QR code that carries the payee’s UPI ID and, on a dynamic code, the amount.
• Mandate: the payer authorises a future or recurring debit once. The one-time block mandate behind IPO applications and the recurring mandate behind UPI AutoPay both come from the mandate construct added in UPI 2.0. The full lifecycle is in UPI mandate and UPI 2.0 mandate explained .

Settlement

The customer sees money arrive in seconds, but banks settle among themselves later. NPCI computes each member bank’s net obligation across batches of UPI transactions, and the net amounts are settled through the banks’ settlement accounts at the RBI. The credit to the payee is final for the customer when it is shown; the interbank netting is invisible to both sides.

UPI against India’s other payment rails

UPI and IMPS share NPCI’s infrastructure. The difference is the address layer: UPI lets a payer pay without ever knowing the payee’s bank.

Transaction limits by category

The general UPI limit is Rs 1 lakh per transaction, and from 15 September 2025 verified merchants in capital markets and insurance can receive Rs 5 lakh per transaction and Rs 10 lakh a day; IPO bids, RBI Retail Direct, tax payments, hospitals and educational institutions carry Rs 5 lakh. The RBI’s Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies of 8 December 2023 sets out the position before the 2025 revision:

the UPI transaction limit is capped at [Rs] 1 lakh, except a few categories like Capital Markets (AMC, Broking, Mutual Funds, etc.), Collections (Credit card payments, Loan re-payments, EMI), Insurance etc. where the transaction limit is [Rs] 2 lakh. In December 2021, the transaction limit for UPI payments for Retail Direct Scheme and for IPO subscriptions was increased to [Rs] 5 lakh.

Per-transaction limits set by the RBI and NPCI. The 15 September 2025 figures are as reported by All India Radio (newsonair, 15 September 2025) from NPCI’s circular of August 2025, which could not be read at source. Banks can set lower limits for their own customers.

From 15 September 2025, NPCI allows merchant transactions of up to Rs 10 lakh a day in select verified categories (PIB feature “UPI: India’s Digital Revolution Goes Global”, September 2025). The categories named in the All India Radio report are insurance premiums, capital markets, travel, collections and the Government e-Marketplace; person-to-person transfers stay at Rs 1 lakh. The Ministry of Finance release of 15 September 2026 describes current limits as “generally ranging from [Rs] 1 lakh to [Rs] 5 lakh depending on the transaction category”, and adds that they are risk safeguards, not charging thresholds.

The per-transaction ceiling is separate from the daily limit, and the bank’s own published daily limit governs a given account.

Products and versions

UPI has been extended since 2016 from a single bank-account transfer into a set of products: mandates in UPI 2.0, offline small payments in UPI Lite, feature-phone access in UPI 123Pay, credit linked to UPI, and delegated payments in UPI Circle. Each is described from the PIB factsheet of 24 August 2026 unless another source is named.

UPI 2.0, 16 August 2018

RBI Governor Urjit Patel launched UPI 2.0 in Mumbai on 16 August 2018, in a speech printed in the RBI Bulletin of 11 September 2018 that named retail IPO applications as a new use. It added four features:

• Invoice in the inbox, letting the payer see the bill before authorising.
• Signed intent and QR, letting the payer’s app verify that a merchant’s QR or payment link is genuine.
• Mandates, pre-authorised one-time or recurring debits.
• Overdraft account linking, so a UPI payment can draw on an overdraft rather than a savings account.

UPI AutoPay

UPI AutoPay, the recurring form of the mandate, came between 2020 and 2022 and supports subscriptions, utility bills, insurance premiums, SIPs and EMIs. Its use for mutual funds is covered in UPI AutoPay for SIPs .

UPI 123Pay, 8 March 2022

UPI 123Pay serves feature-phone users through four channels: an interactive voice response number, an app on the feature phone, a missed-call method and proximity sound-based payment. PIB dates the launch to 8 March 2022. Its per-transaction limit was raised to Rs 10,000 in 2024. A dedicated entry is at UPI 123Pay .

UPI Lite

UPI Lite holds a small balance on the device and pays without a UPI PIN, which removes the bank’s core system from each small transaction. It runs under the RBI’s Framework for Facilitating Small Value Digital Payments in Offline Mode, RBI/2021-22/146 of 3 January 2022, which as updated on 4 December 2024 states: “For UPI Lite, the enhanced limits shall be [Rs] 1,000 per transaction with [Rs] 5,000 being the total limit.” The general offline limits under the same framework are Rs 500 per payment and Rs 2,000 in total. A dedicated entry is at UPI Lite .

Credit on UPI

The factsheet records the integration of credit cards with UPI between 2020 and 2022, and Credit Line on UPI in 2023, which lets a pre-sanctioned bank credit line act as the funding account. The RuPay credit card is the card that can be linked. The zero-MDR rule of 2020 described below named RuPay debit cards, BHIM-UPI and UPI QR codes, not credit cards.

UPI Circle, 2024

UPI Circle lets a primary user authorise secondary users to pay from the primary user’s bank account within limits the primary user sets. The RBI proposed delegated payments in the Governor’s Statement of 8 August 2024, para 35. The per-user limits are set in NPCI’s product rules, which could not be read at a primary source. A dedicated entry is at UPI Circle .

Biometric authentication, 2025

In 2025 NPCI introduced on-device authentication, letting a UPI payment be approved by the phone’s fingerprint or face unlock, and Aadhaar-based face authentication for setting the UPI PIN, aimed at first-time users, senior citizens and customers without a debit card.

Charges: zero MDR from 2020 and the 2026 framework

From 1 January 2020 the law barred banks from charging merchants a merchant discount rate (MDR) on BHIM-UPI and UPI QR payments; a framework announced on 15 September 2026 puts a 0.4 per cent MDR on merchant payments above Rs 2,000 while keeping person-to-person transfers and smaller merchant payments free, and NPCI postponed its 15 October 2026 start to after Diwali.

The zero-MDR regime, 1 January 2020

The zero MDR was set by statute, not by the RBI or NPCI. Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act 2007, read with Section 269SU of the Income-tax Act 1961 , barred a bank or system provider from charging MDR on payments to a covered business by RuPay debit card, BHIM-UPI and UPI QR code, from 1 January 2020 (CBDT Circular 32/2019, 30 December 2019).

The government incentive scheme

Banks and apps were compensated through a Central Government incentive scheme for RuPay debit cards and low-value BHIM-UPI merchant payments. The scheme figures, all from PIB releases:

Outlays and payouts from the Cabinet approval releases of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Ministry of Finance, as numbered.

The FY2024-25 scheme paid 0.15 per cent on person-to-merchant payments up to Rs 2,000 to small merchants (PIB release 2114335, 24 March 2025). Payouts rose from Rs 1,389 crore in FY2021-22 to Rs 3,631 crore in FY2023-24.

The MDR framework announced on 15 September 2026

The Ministry of Finance release of 15 September 2026, “UPI Continues to Remain Free for Peer to Peer Transactions and 96% of Merchant Transactions”, sets out the framework, which it says was “Introduced under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, following detailed deliberations by the UPI Steering Committee”. The Department of Financial Services FAQ of the same date gives the start date of 15 October 2026.

Source: Ministry of Finance, PIB release 2310586, 15 September 2026; Department of Financial Services, FAQs on Merchant Discount Rate on Select UPI (P2M) Transactions, 15 September 2026.

The release states that MDR “is neither a tax nor a charge collected by the Government or NPCI” and is shared among banks, payment service providers and app providers. It says that “approximately 96% of all P2M transactions will remain unaffected”, that banks have been advised to stop merchants passing the charge to customers, that apps “are expressly prohibited from imposing platform fees or hidden charges”, and that 5 per cent of total MDR collections will go into a fund for small-merchant UPI adoption.

NPCI postponed the start on 15 October 2026, the day the charge was due, and said it would take effect after Diwali, according to All India Radio (newsonair, 15 October 2026). No new date had been published by 19 October 2026. Neither the release nor the FAQ names the amending notification or the change to Section 10A of the PSS Act and Section 269SU that would replace the zero-MDR rule of 2020, and no such instrument has been confirmed at a primary source.

For a mutual fund investor, the 0.02 per cent rate, once in force, would be Rs 2 on a Rs 10,000 SIP instalment paid by UPI, and nothing on an instalment of Rs 2,000 or less, which the release keeps free of MDR. The Rs 300 cap is reached at Rs 15 lakh, above the per-transaction UPI limit. The release bars merchants from passing MDR to customers; SEBI has not stated how an AMC is to account for it, whether at the AMC or within a scheme’s total expense ratio.

Refunds, disputes and complaints

A UPI payment that is debited but not credited must be reversed automatically by T+1 day for a transfer and T+5 days for a merchant payment, and after that the bank owes the customer Rs 100 a day without a claim being filed, under RBI circular RBI/2019-20/67 DPSS.CO.PD No.629/02.01.014/2019-20 of 20 September 2019 on harmonised turnaround time.

Source: RBI circular DPSS.CO.PD No.629/02.01.014/2019-20, 20 September 2019. T is the day of the transaction.

The complaint route for any other UPI problem, such as a payment to the wrong UPI ID, an unauthorised debit or a refused reversal, starts with the app or the customer’s bank. If the regulated entity rejects the complaint or does not reply within 30 days, the customer can complain to the RBI Ombudsman under the Reserve Bank - Integrated Ombudsman Scheme 2021 , in force from 12 November 2021, which covers system participants in payment systems.

A payment pushed to the wrong UPI ID by the payer’s own mistake is not a failed transaction under the 2019 circular, because the debit and credit both completed. Recovery then depends on the beneficiary bank contacting its customer, and the circular’s compensation does not apply.

Security and fraud

UPI’s security rests on two factors held by the payer, the registered device with its SIM and the UPI PIN, and most UPI fraud works by persuading the payer to use both on the fraudster’s behalf rather than by breaking either.

The device binding means a stolen account number or debit card alone does not move money through UPI. The common fraud patterns are social engineering:

• Collect-request fraud, where a fraudster posing as a merchant, a bank or a government office sends a collect request and tells the victim that entering the PIN will receive money. Entering the PIN on a collect request always pays out.
• Screen-sharing fraud, where a fake support caller asks the victim to install a remote-access app and then watches the PIN being entered.
• Fake QR codes, either a sticker pasted over a shop’s code or a QR sent with a claim that scanning it pays the victim. Scanning a QR code only ever pays the code’s owner.
• SIM swap, where a fraudster obtains a duplicate SIM and re-registers UPI on a new phone, which also needs debit card details or Aadhaar authentication to set a new PIN.

The RBI’s Authentication Mechanisms for Digital Payment Transactions Directions, 2025 (RBI/2025-26/79, 25 September 2025) require compliance by payment system participants by 1 April 2026. NPCI has issued a Comprehensive UPI Information Security Framework (CUISF) 2025 and a Mobile Application Security Framework, according to the Ministry of Finance reply of 20 July 2026.

UPI fraud counts and amounts by financial year were not found in a primary source read for this entry (the Ministry of Finance replies of 11 March 2025 and 20 July 2026 do not give them), so no fraud figure is stated here.

UPI in the capital market

UPI is the compulsory payment route for individual IPO bids up to Rs 5 lakh placed through a broker or other intermediary, a common route for funding a trading account, and one of the two mandate routes for mutual fund SIPs.

UPI ASBA for IPO applications

SEBI introduced UPI as an additional payment mechanism with ASBA by circular SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2018/138 of 1 November 2018, and made it the route for retail applications made through intermediaries from 1 July 2019 by circular SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2019/76 of 28 June 2019. After NPCI raised the IPO limit to Rs 5 lakh on 9 December 2021, SEBI circular SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2022/45 of 5 April 2022 required individual investors bidding up to Rs 5 lakh through a syndicate member, stockbroker, depository participant or registrar to “use UPI” in public issues opening on or after 1 May 2022.

The flow, covered in detail in UPI ASBA and how to approve a UPI mandate for an IPO :

1. The investor bids through a broker, such as Zerodha , or a bank, entering a UPI ID.
2. The exchange passes the bid to the issue’s sponsor bank, which sends a one-time block mandate request through NPCI.
3. The investor approves the mandate in the UPI app with the UPI PIN, before the cut-off on the issue’s closing day.
4. The investor’s bank blocks the bid amount; the money stays in the account and keeps earning interest.
5. On allotment, the blocked amount is debited for the shares allotted, and the rest is released.

Bids above Rs 5 lakh, bids by HNIs and QIBs, and any individual bid placed directly with a bank go through bank ASBA with a Self Certified Syndicate Bank , which stays open to individuals through net-banking ASBA . The apps and banks certified for UPI ASBA are listed in UPI ASBA supported apps and banks , and the eligibility rules in who can use UPI ASBA .

Funding a trading account

Brokers accept UPI pay-ins through their payment gateways, which credit the trading account within seconds rather than at the next half-hourly NEFT batch. The procedure on Zerodha is in how to add funds to Zerodha by UPI , and the charges in Zerodha payment gateway fees . Under the framework announced on 15 September 2026, pay-ins above Rs 2,000 fall in the 0.02 per cent capital-market MDR band, borne by the broker, once NPCI’s postponed start takes effect.

Mutual fund SIPs and lump sums

An investor in a mutual fund can pay a lump sum by UPI up to the capital-market category limit, Rs 5 lakh per transaction from 15 September 2025, and register a SIP on a UPI AutoPay mandate. The older NACH e-mandate remains the alternative and is often used for larger instalments. The steps are in how to set up a UPI AutoPay mandate for a mutual fund and, for Zerodha’s Coin, how to start a SIP with UPI AutoPay on Coin .

International reach

UPI is live in 11 countries as of 24 August 2026, for merchant acceptance, cross-border remittance or both, through NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), a wholly owned NPCI subsidiary incorporated in April 2020 (PIB release 2302657; Ministry of Finance reply, 20 July 2026).

The 11 countries are the United Arab Emirates, France, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Singapore, Mauritius, Qatar, Cambodia, Greece and the Maldives. The corridors with stated dates:

Corridors listed are those with a date in the named source; the other six countries are on the PIB list without a launch date read for this entry.

The UPI-PayNow link was launched by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das and Monetary Authority of Singapore Managing Director Ravi Menon, in the presence of Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Lee Hsien Loong, with an initial limit of Rs 60,000 a day, about SGD 1,000. Cross-border payments and remittances by a resident sit under FEMA , which the RBI administers.

Scale and global position

UPI accounted for about 49 per cent of the world’s real-time payment volume in 2024, according to the IMF note “Growing Retail Digital Payments: The Value of Interoperability”, published in June 2025 and cited in the PIB factsheet of 24 August 2026. An earlier PIB release (2114335, 24 March 2025) cited the ACI Worldwide report of 2024 for a 49 per cent share in 2023. Both figures reach this page through PIB, not from the IMF or ACI documents directly.

Annual volume and value, from the Ministry of Finance reply in the Lok Sabha published on 20 July 2026:

Source: Ministry of Finance, PIB release 2286608, 20 July 2026. Growth in volume computed by webnotes.in from the same figures.

Volume growth fell from 82 per cent to 30 per cent over three years, while the absolute addition rose from 3,776 crore to 5,575 crore transactions a year. The average transaction has fallen: Rs 1,831 in FY2021-22 against Rs 1,300 in FY2025-26, on the same figures. PIB states that 86 per cent of merchant payments are below Rs 500. Merchant payments make up 63 per cent of volume and person-to-person transfers 71 per cent of value (PIB release 2302657, 24 August 2026).

Apps and market concentration

Third-party apps carry most UPI traffic, led by PhonePe and Google Pay, with Paytm third; each operates only through sponsor PSP banks. Every major bank also runs a UPI app of its own, and NPCI runs BHIM.

NPCI publishes app-wise market shares and the list of TPAPs with their sponsor banks and handles on its website, which could not be read for this entry, so no app share or handle-to-bank mapping is stated here. NPCI has set a 30 per cent volume cap for any single TPAP, with the compliance deadline extended more than once; the current deadline could not be confirmed at a primary source and is not stated.

The concentration matters to an IPO applicant: a mandate request goes to the app whose UPI ID was entered, so an outage at one app on an issue’s closing day can cost the bid. Why UPI handles are missing on Zerodha IPO and how to fix a UPI mandate timeout cover the failure cases.

Legal and regulatory framework

UPI is governed by the Payment and Settlement Systems Act 2007, under which NPCI holds its authorisation and the RBI sets payment-system rules, with SEBI rules on top for capital-market use and NPCI’s operating circulars binding member banks and apps.

The data-localisation circular of 6 April 2018 required every payment system operator to store all payment data relating to India in India within six months, report compliance by 15 October 2018 and file a board-approved CERT-In empanelled auditor’s report by 31 December 2018. It applies to NPCI, to every PSP bank and to every app.

The RBI also writes the payment-system rules that sit behind UPI for investors, including the e-mandate framework used for SIPs. NPCI’s own governance and other products are covered separately.

Corrections

• UPI was not launched publicly on 11 April 2016. That was the pilot with 21 banks; public use began on 25 August 2016.
• SEBI brought UPI to IPOs by circular SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2018/138 of 1 November 2018, and made it the retail route by SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2019/76 of 28 June 2019. An earlier version of this page cited a “SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL1/CIR/P/2019/62” circular of May 2019, which does not match a circular confirmed at a primary source.
• UPI complaints do not run through the UMANG app, as an earlier version of this page stated. UMANG is the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s government-services app; UPI complaints go to the app, the bank and then the RBI Ombudsman.
• The zero MDR was not an RBI decision. It came from Section 10A of the PSS Act and Section 269SU of the Income-tax Act 1961 from 1 January 2020.
• UPI does not have one flat Rs 1 lakh limit. IPO, tax, hospital, education, capital-market and insurance payments carry Rs 5 lakh per transaction.
• The UPI MDR did not start on 15 October 2026. NPCI postponed it that day to after Diwali.

See also

• National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)
• NPCI and Indian payments infrastructure
• Reserve Bank of India
• Payment and Settlement Systems Act 2007
• IMPS
• NEFT
• RTGS
• RuPay
• BHIM app
• UPI Lite
• UPI 123Pay
• UPI Circle
• UPI mandate
• UPI 2.0 mandate explained
• UPI ASBA
• ASBA
• UPI ASBA supported apps and banks
• Who can use UPI ASBA for an IPO
• Bank account and UPI ID for an IPO
• Self Certified Syndicate Bank
• How to approve a UPI mandate for an IPO
• How to approve a UPI mandate on Google Pay
• How to approve a UPI mandate on PhonePe
• How to approve a UPI mandate on BHIM
• How to fix a UPI mandate timeout
• IPO process in India
• Payment Service Provider (PSP) bank
• UPI AutoPay for SIPs
• How to set up a UPI AutoPay mandate for a mutual fund
• E-mandate and NACH for SIPs
• How to add funds to Zerodha by UPI
• Zerodha payment gateway fees
• Mutual funds in India
• RBI Integrated Ombudsman Scheme
• Aadhaar
• Digital rupee
• Paytm Payments Bank

External references

• NPCI: Unified Payments Interface
• PIB: UPI completes 10 years, 24 August 2026
• PIB: UPI continues to remain free for P2P and 96% of merchant transactions, 15 September 2026
• All India Radio: UPI raises daily P2M payment limit to Rs 10 lakh, 15 September 2025
• RBI: Harmonisation of turnaround time and customer compensation, 20 September 2019
• RBI: Framework for small value digital payments in offline mode
• RBI: Authentication mechanisms for digital payment transactions Directions, 2025
• Digital India: Unified Payment Interface

References

1. Ministry of Finance, reply in the Lok Sabha on UPI transactions, PIB release 2286608, 20 July 2026.
2. Press Information Bureau, UPI Completes 10 Years of Digital Payments Revolution, release 2302657, and factsheet UPI: Transforming India’s Payment Landscape, 24 August 2026.
3. Ministry of Finance, UPI Continues to Remain Free for Peer to Peer Transactions and 96% of Merchant Transactions, PIB release 2310586, 15 September 2026; Department of Financial Services, FAQs on Merchant Discount Rate on Select UPI (P2M) Transactions, 15 September 2026; All India Radio, NPCI postpones implementation of MDR on select Person-to-Merchant UPI transactions, newsonair, 15 October 2026.
4. CBDT Circular No. 32 of 2019, 30 December 2019, on Section 269SU of the Income-tax Act 1961 and Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act 2007.
5. Reserve Bank of India, Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies, 8 December 2023 (RBI Bulletin, 20 December 2023); Governor’s Statement, 8 August 2024, paras 34 and 35 (RBI Bulletin, 19 August 2024).
6. Reserve Bank of India, circular RBI/2019-20/67 DPSS.CO.PD No.629/02.01.014/2019-20, Harmonisation of Turn Around Time (TAT) and customer compensation for failed transactions using authorised Payment Systems, 20 September 2019.
7. Reserve Bank of India, RBI/2021-22/146 CO.DPSS.POLC.No.S1264/02-14-003/2021-2022, Framework for Facilitating Small Value Digital Payments in Offline Mode, 3 January 2022, updated 4 December 2024; RBI/2025-26/79, Authentication mechanisms for digital payment transactions Directions, 2025, 25 September 2025; RBI/2017-18/153 DPSS.CO.OD No.2785/06.08.005/2017-2018, Storage of Payment System Data, 6 April 2018.
8. SEBI circulars SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2018/138, 1 November 2018; SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2019/76, 28 June 2019; SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2022/45, 5 April 2022; and NPCI/UPI/OC No. 127/2021-22, 9 December 2021; All India Radio, UPI Raises Daily P2M Payment Limit To Rs 10 Lakh, newsonair, 15 September 2025.
9. Urjit R. Patel, Innovation in Retail Payments, speech at the launch of UPI 2.0, Mumbai, 16 August 2018 (RBI Bulletin, 11 September 2018).
10. Reserve Bank of India, press release 2022-2023/1762, launch of UPI-PayNow linkage, 21 February 2023; PIB releases 1781727 (15 December 2021), 1890314 (11 January 2023), 2112771 (19 March 2025) and 2114335 (24 March 2025) on the incentive scheme.