NPCI Holds Meeting With Banks, Fintech Apps Over UPI Outages
The officials of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which manages the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), reportedly met with major banks and UPI apps today to discuss recent outages in the system. This came after UPI experienced multiple outages over the past three weeks. During the meeting, the NPCI reportedly urged banks and third-party app providers to be cautious when commenting publicly on the outages, Moneycontrol reported, citing sources. It also shared updates on ongoing efforts to upgrade UPI infrastructure to prevent future disruptions. Inc42 has reached out to the NPCI seeking comments on the development. The story will be updated on receiving a response. Notably, the report said that the NPCI shared details of the March 26 outage with partner banks but has not made the report public. The glitch was reportedly due to a hardware issue at a NPCI switch, according to a banker present at the meeting. “NPCI has clarified to the banks that it is upgrading the UPI infrastructure and that resulted in an unexpected glitch. It seems to be an ongoing process and they want to avoid any more outages,” a source was quoted as saying. The update comes at a time when UPI left millions of its users at a standstill due to “intermittent technical issues,” according to NPCI. This was after UPI services went down across the country in February this year. At the time, NPCI attributed the outage to “some technical issues” on the side of partner banks. This is when Indian fintech and banking sectors are pushing for the reintroduction of the merchant discount rate (MDR) on high-value UPI transactions, arguing that the zero MDR regime, in place since 2020 to boost digital payments, has become financially unsustainable. The stakeholders have proposed a 0.3% MDR on transactions above INR 2,000 for merchants with over INR 20 Lakh annual turnover. On this issue, while major players like Google Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm remain silent, many industry stakeholders including banks, fintech startups, and industry bodies have reportedly appealed to Prime Minister Modi. With this while concerns exist that merchants may pass costs to consumers, its supporters argue that the impact will be minimal and necessary for long-term viability. The post NPCI Holds Meeting With Banks, Fintech Apps Over UPI Outages appeared first on Inc42 Media.
The officials of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which manages the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), reportedly met with major banks and UPI apps today to discuss recent outages in the system.
This came after UPI experienced multiple outages over the past three weeks.
During the meeting, the NPCI reportedly urged banks and third-party app providers to be cautious when commenting publicly on the outages, Moneycontrol reported, citing sources.
It also shared updates on ongoing efforts to upgrade UPI infrastructure to prevent future disruptions.
Inc42 has reached out to the NPCI seeking comments on the development. The story will be updated on receiving a response.
Notably, the report said that the NPCI shared details of the March 26 outage with partner banks but has not made the report public. The glitch was reportedly due to a hardware issue at a NPCI switch, according to a banker present at the meeting.
“NPCI has clarified to the banks that it is upgrading the UPI infrastructure and that resulted in an unexpected glitch. It seems to be an ongoing process and they want to avoid any more outages,” a source was quoted as saying.
The update comes at a time when UPI left millions of its users at a standstill due to “intermittent technical issues,” according to NPCI. This was after UPI services went down across the country in February this year.
At the time, NPCI attributed the outage to “some technical issues” on the side of partner banks.
This is when Indian fintech and banking sectors are pushing for the reintroduction of the merchant discount rate (MDR) on high-value UPI transactions, arguing that the zero MDR regime, in place since 2020 to boost digital payments, has become financially unsustainable.
The stakeholders have proposed a 0.3% MDR on transactions above INR 2,000 for merchants with over INR 20 Lakh annual turnover.
On this issue, while major players like Google Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm remain silent, many industry stakeholders including banks, fintech startups, and industry bodies have reportedly appealed to Prime Minister Modi.
With this while concerns exist that merchants may pass costs to consumers, its supporters argue that the impact will be minimal and necessary for long-term viability.
The post NPCI Holds Meeting With Banks, Fintech Apps Over UPI Outages appeared first on Inc42 Media.
