Standard Chartered Bank is betting heavily on UPI to increase the volume of digital transactions. Ashutosh Kumar, regional head for transaction banking at South Asia at Standard Chartered Bank, explains the bank’s strategy:
Brian Pereira: Standard Chartered Bank has said it will be offering UPI to corporate and retail customers. What are the salient aspects of this platform?
Ashutosh Kumar: UPI is a very unique payment mechanism and there is no other such platform elsewhere in the world. It is in many ways revolutionary or next generation. Wallets are an older generation of payments mechanism.
UPI has the ability to link all bank accounts in India. If you have a bank account with an ATM/debit or credit card, you can self on-board and come on the UPI platform. Once on the platform, you can pay or receive money from anyone on the platform. It is instant and offers real-time transfers. It is available 24×7.
The platform also offers a much wider reach than wallets, credit cards and debit cards.
What are the features that make UPI unique as compared to other electronic payment platforms?
One feature that makes UPI unique is the ‘Collect’ feature. If you are due to receive payment from a merchant or someone, you can send a ‘Collect’ request. The moment the biller clicks ‘Authorize’ the money is debited from his account and instantaneously credited to your account. This is better than sending a reminder.
From a digital payments landscape perspective, you can do certain things on UPI that are not possible on other platforms. The only other platform that allows you to collect is called direct debits or NACH debits. However, the registration process is very cumbersome.
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