UPI123Pay
The usage of UPI, both in terms of the number of transactions (green line) as well as the amount of money being transferred (blue bars), has been increasingly exponentially over the years. In 2021, it hit $840 billion. But UPI was restricted to those who had a smartphone. (That means 40 crore feature phone subscribers were left out). Which is why the RBI launched UPI for feature phones, aka UPI123Pay on 9 th March. UPI123Pay doesn’t even require an Internet connection! Here’s how it works: the “123” refers to it being a 3-step process to transfer money via the feature phone – call, choose, and pay. But first, the user has to link his (feature) phone to his bank account. At which point, he’d be asked to set his UPI PIN using his debit card. With that, he is good to use UPI123Pay. To transfer money, (1) he needs to call an IVR number from his feature phone (the IVR works in multiple languages) (2) He then selects whom to transfer the money to – another in...