What is UPI?

Since its launch in 2016 by the National Payments Corporation of India, it has grown exponentially thanks to the introduction of cheap mobile internet, competitively priced phones because of competition between phone manufacturers for a share of the Indian market, speedy payments and charge-free transactions.

Fast forward to today, UPI has forayed into Bhutan, Nepal, Malaysia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, France and now the United Kingdom. On 18th August 2022, NPCI International signed on PayXpert as UK’s first acquirer for UPI. This means that customers can soon make payments through UPI at PayXpert’s point-of-sale (POS) devices in stores in the UK.

Why does PayXpert want UPI?

With over 260 million users, the Unified Payments Interface, also known as UPI, has taken India by storm and has led the charge of digital payments in India. It has become the best-performing real-time payment ecosystem on the planet!

PayXpert was created in 2009 to be a gateway that could be supported by banks across Europe. PayXpert has since partnered up with various countries like China and America to become a versatile solution for international payments with a host of international payment methods from WeChat Pay to American Express and has allowed tourists to shop and make their way around London. Now with the introduction of UPI, PayXpert can strengthen their expanding portfolio of international payments with the biggest real-time payment ecosystem.

What does this mean for UK merchants?

With the arrival of the new partnership, payXpert will introduce UPI to thousands of merchants in the UK ranging from restaurants to shopping malls. This will encourage Indian tourists to visit businesses that offer seamless transactions with their existing payment methods.

Every year over 500,000 Indians travel to the UK as tourists, students and workers. This partnership opens up the opportunity for Payxpert to gain market share in the ever growing Indian market by allowing Indian customers to shop and travel in pounds using a familiar payment method. With the number of Indians visiting the UK set to increase over the coming years, this partnership by PayXpert will help to streamline payments, both for customers and businesses and solves the problem faced by Indian travellers who did not have a direct Indian payment solution.

With PayXpert having UPI as a payment solution, it encourages Indians to spend more money overseas and encourages more travellers to visit the UK. This helps the tourism industry, this helps tourism grow after two years of lockdown and gives confidence to businesses to invest in UK based companies instead of those abroad.

UPI also opens up opportunities for business between the UK and India as customers can make payments to each other within a short amount of time without the need for cash or credit cards and brings India closer to the international community.

The launch of UPI in the UK will dramatically change the way Indian tourists and businesses in the UK transact and make payments that benefit all parties involved and encourage people and small businesses in the UK to trade across borders more easily than ever before.

What makes UPI special?

UPI has become a staple in Indian banking, so much so that Google rewrote the Indian variant of their Gpay app on UPI. UPI can be used almost everywhere in India from restaurants to even roadside stalls.

What makes UPI special is its simple interface and no-nonsense transaction process. Money transfers have become much easier with UPI because you don't need to remember the receiver's account number, account type, and IFSC. All you need is their mobile number or their QR code.

UPI is such a versatile payment solution that it allows people to manage all their bank accounts across different banks under a single app and allows businesses to collect recurring payments through their service called UPI AutoPay.

Can UK businesses make use of UPI’s Recurring Payments?

At the time of writing this, UPI Auto Pay - the seamless recurring payment solution of UPI is not planned to roll out in the UK as UPI is yet to be launched in the UK. If you wish to offer your customers recurring payments for your services, look no further, our service Subscribie helps businesses and individuals collect recurring payments from their customers. All it takes is a few minutes to set up and you are ready to collect recurring payments!

Try out Subscribie and create your very own subscription to collect recurring payments.