Dr Lakshkaushik Puri
Digital payment systems have propelled the country to become one of the world's fastest growing financial economies. With over 300 participating banks, the Unified Payments Interface has achieved a record success of $1 trillion for the fiscal year 2021-22. Today, UPI has become a medium of transaction for the common man and is at the forefront of the Government of India's Digital India Initiative. The proportion of UPI transactions in the total volume of digital transactions increased from 23% in 2018–19 to 55% in 2020–21 with an average value of 1,849 per transaction. People all over the world have become much more at ease with digital solutions since the world went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, a total of 7,422 crores digital payment transactions were recorded in the fiscal year 2022, which spans April 2021 to March 2022.
UPI expansion over time: Interbank P2P and P2M transactions are made possible by the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), an instant real-time payment system. It is a component of the RBI's Green Initiative and supports the goal of an authorized, safe, effective, accessible, inclusive, and interoperable payment and settlement system in India. The convenience of cash-on-delivery transactions, the ability to raise transaction disputes are just a few of the advantages of UPI. For many decades, cash transactions have been prevalent in India. UPI is a serious threat to card payments in the modern day.
Understanding of UPI fraud: Fraudsters are omnipresent, and while it is impossible to completely eradicate them, it is possible to keep them at bay. It is crucial to be aware of the many scams committed by fraudsters in today's world as more and more users from a variety of age groups continue to be added to the UPI ecosystem. In order to trick people into disclosing their personal information, fraudsters construct false UPI links with names like BHIM, NPCI, and UPI leading to data and financial theft. Downloading unidentified and risky apps to our smartphones can result in fraud.
The penetration of UPI into the payments ecosystem will increase significantly as more and more users join the smartphone revolution. The UPI, owing to its convenience and safety, is currently leading the charge in terms of payments. As its popularity grows, additional UPI improvements and uses will be possible.
(The writer is faculty at Department of Commerce, Vinayakrao Patil Mahavidyalaya, Vaijapur, Aurangabad).