What was once an innovation is today “a way of life” for millions of consumers in India. Over the last two and a half years, transactions on the UPI network have “grown by a factor of 6 as digital payments have exploded in India,” according to an update from Razorpay.
Razorpay notes in a blog post that in India, they’re now on the cusp of another revolution in the digital payments space. Earlier this year, the RBI announced that RuPay credit cards “could be linked to the UPI platform, via BHIM (for now), and other popular apps like GPay and PhonePe in the coming months.”
It means that users can now “start making payments via UPI apps using their credit cards, thus expanding the credit ecosystem to benefit businesses and customers alike.”
Razorpay added that they’re pleased to announce that they’ve become the “first” payment gateway “to support credit cards on UPI.”
Having been a “pioneer” in supporting UPI, Razorpay are now looking forward to being part of a new era in UPI payments “with this launch.”
This disruption “has been possible in partnership with Axis Bank.” Razorpay merchants can soon “begin accepting credit card payments on UPI, with minimal changes to their existing setup.” The needs of businesses and consumers are “always evolving and we at Razorpay remain focused on fulfilling them.”
As explained in a blog post, UPI has “allowed customers to transact seamlessly on top of their bank accounts or debit cards.” The decision “to enable the linking of credit cards to UPI means that customers will now be able to make UPI payments on credit.” The early users to take advantage of this “will be Rupay credit card users, with cards from four issuing banks as of now – Indian Bank, Union Bank, Punjab National Bank and HDFC Bank.”
There are “close to 250 million UPI users and about 50 million users who have one or more credit cards in India.” This is “a welcome move from India’s financial regulator, to give users the best of both worlds – the seamless payment experience of UPI with the benefits of short-term credit and card rewards.”
This decision undertaken by the NPCI and RBI is “set to have positive implications for both consumers and merchants, where they can transact and accept payments via credit cards on UPI.” For this enablement to bring in the impact, “the readiness of any payment gateway infrastructure is essential.” Under this context, Razorpay has “taken the first step towards democratising credit card transactions on UPI for our merchants.”
At Razorpay, they have ensured that their Payment Gateway is “ready to support credit card payments via UPI.”
So if you’re a Razorpay business, you will soon be “able to offer your customers the convenience of making credit card payments via UPI.”
They are LIVE with a few merchants, “including Zomato, ICICI Lombard & BlinkIt, and will go live with our extensive user base over the next couple of months.”
For more details, check here.