United Payment Interface (UPI), the most common invention in India in the payment field, occurred three times in April (the most in a month), which ruined trade and attracted public attention.
The RBI-led Indian National Payment Company launched UPI in 2016 to replace cash payments in the country. But after the Covid-19-19 Islands pandemic in March 2020, UPI gained wider acceptance after fears about the possibility of coronavirus transmission through currency notes.
According to estimates, UPI is used to earn 65% of digital payments in India. In March alone, it processed 12 million transactions. With acceptance in premium stores and tea stands, UPI almost eliminates the need for people to carry cash or wallets while shopping, making it an essential payment infrastructure. In this case, frequent UPI failures (such as the glitches seen in Japan on April 1, April 2 and April 12) can cause anger among hundreds of thousands of people.
On the other hand, no technical solution can be a 100% foolproof system, so edge bias should be considered acceptable. Over the past five years (1,827 days or about 26,28,000 minutes), the payment system experienced 21 interruptions or about 1,200 minutes when UPI gained wider acceptance. The UPI has a failure rate of 0.045% and its success rate of 99.955%, which is an impeccable record.
However, as people’s reliance on digital payments has increased significantly over the past five years, the government should include payment intermediaries such as Paytm, Phonepe and Google Pay, including Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or digital rupees as alternative payment options in their mobile apps. Whenever the UPI system doesn’t work, the application can seamlessly switch to digital rupees to facilitate payments. But nothing beats cash, so carry a wallet.
