Healthy start for UPI as banks open Virtual Payments Addresses at brisk pace

October 4, 2016

The ambitious Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform that was launched by National Payments Corporation (NPCI) last month has got off to a brisk start with banks’ customers having started opening their virtual payment addresses at a fairly rapid pace. With this system, customers have to open a virtual payments address of their choice and link it to any bank account. The VPA acts as their financial address and users need not remember the beneficiary’s account number, IFSC codes or net banking user id/passwords for sending or receiving money. The VPA acts as a financial address for a user in lieu of their 16-digit bank account number and the 11-digit IFSC code.

ICICI Bank, the country’s largest private sector bank, said it has crossed the milestone of 1 lakh Virtual Payment Addresses (VPA) on ‘Unified Payments Interface’ (UPI) within three weeks of its launch. With this, customers of any bank who have created their VPA on ‘Pockets’ as well as ICICI Bank customers using ‘iMobile’ can soon pay using their smartphones at over 6,500 Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) petrol pumps and more than 2,000 stores of Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL) across the country. The bank has tied up with ABFRL and HPCL to offer UPI-based payments at its retail outlets.

“I’m delighted to share that ICICI Bank has crossed the milestone of creating 1 lakh VPAs for enabling UPI based payments, within three weeks of its launch. We have received an encouraging response from users including non-ICICI Bank customers for creating their VPA using ‘Pockets,” Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank said. She also said ICICI Bank intends to continue exploring more such potential partnerships (like HPCL ABFRL) which will go a long way in popularising the usage of UPI. “I believe that UPI will revolutionise the landscape of electronic payments in India and go a long way in reducing the usage of cash in the economy,” she added.

A. P. Hota, MD & CEO, NPCI lauded ICICI Bank’s effort and said the lender was among the frontrunners to launch UPI through the app. “Transactions on a real-time basis via mobile app has not been made possible anywhere else in the world. Considering the ease of transactions offered by UPI, in the days to come more customers will get accustomed to UPI based transactions,” Mr Hota said.

The upgraded ‘iMobile’ application of ICICI Bank comprising UPI services is available on the smartphones with Android and iOS operating systems.