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Master Card and Visa are failing, because we have something better in place. BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) developed by National Payments Corporation of In

Master Card and Visa are failing, because we have something better in place. BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) developed by National Payments Corporation of India. - Transferring money from one personal account to any new account (adding a beneficiary account) would take more than 4 hours. - One needs to login each and every time to transfer money. - There is a chance of forgetting password and account being locked on multiple tries. - Extra charges for transferring money. All this problems were solved by BHIM new UPI (Unified Payments Interface). - Linking bank account with app (takes less than 1 minute) - Transferring money doesn't have any extra charges - No password, but 4 to 6 digit pin for transaction. - Safe, transaction can be done only from mobile which is linked with bank. Additional benefits, There is no need to give personal information, one can provide UPI address or Virtual UPI address. In Google Pay app, If my Gmail account is xyz@gmail.com Then my UPI would be, xyz@ok{bankname} If my bank is SBI,Then my UPI is xyz@oksbi Mentioning this address, anybody can make a payment or request one. Edit: Formatting

nunez 7y ago
I completely believe it. I spent two months in Hyderabad. India is WAYYY ahead on the payments game. Every business, no matter the size, accepted mobile payments (usually PayTM, but I saw support for PhonePe, Zeta and others). The US is super behind on this; very, very, very few retailers accept Square Cash, more accept PayPal, none of them accept those payments easily. Any app that does mobile banking requires KYC verification. For mobile payments, usually support soft KYC, which you can easily fake, but only lasts 180 days. For anything else online banking related, hard (in-person) KYC was required. Every terminal supported credit/debit cards (though using international cards was a crap-shoot, and AMEX even more so) and all of them expected Chip + PIN. People were legitimately surprised when they saw that I had to sign. Some didn't even ask for the signature because they weren't used to it. Everything in India uses SMS OTP and requires an India phone number to receive it. This was super annoying before getting a Indian SIM card, but once I did, I realized how nice of a system this was. There were many things about the India experience that I wasn't a fan of; paying for stuff was definitely not one of htem.
- kamaal 7y ago
  >>India is WAYYY ahead on the payments game. Only if you(and the person receiving) can afford a smart phone, and an internet connection. The edge US has is the cards are ubiquitous, they cost nothing to carry and use. Every one has them, and every one receiving them has the readers. Most credit unions don't charge for checking accounts, and transaction fees are $0. US is WAYYY ahead on the payments access game.
  - gingabriska 7y ago
    Not just that but getting an account to process international card is very difficult in India and setting up recurring payments or SaaS very difficult.
    - nonamechicken 7y ago
      I recently tried to buy Office 365 from MS India. It just kept on failing with my India debit card even though it accepts both debit/credit cards. The error message was not helpful and finally came to know from customer care that it was due to the debit card. So, it can go both ways.
    - sfifs 7y ago
      Recurring payments have been intentionally blocked by the banking regulator in India by requiring 2FA for every online transaction to prevent abuse/fraud. It is a known pain intentionally traded off - hopefully will get fixed at some point. I think the issue with international cards is also likely linked to online transaction 2FA policy. Some American banks don't implement 2FA and that's likely the reason they fail. I've never had a problem with my Singapore card.
  - sfifs 7y ago
    > Only if you(and the person receiving) can afford a smart phone, and an internet connection The number of people in India who can likely exceeds adult population of the United States :-)
  - taobility 7y ago
adityasaky 7y ago
Just to add on: NPCI is a not-for-profit organization which is a consortium of banks and is promoted by the Reserve Bank of India. And these guys absolutely kill it. I moved from India to the US last year and payments are overall so much more complicated here. I have to download a third party app and even my bank, at least as far as I can tell, doesn't have a straightforward mechanism to transfer money to other people without using Zelle. NPCI came up with IMPS, which is also what UPI is partially built upon I think. IMPS worked for basically every bank and you could transfer to every other bank instantly, usually via that bank's app or website. UPI almost took it to an IM-ing money level.
- gingabriska 7y ago
  Not for profit doesn't mean free from outside influences.
  - zelon88 7y ago
    It also doesn't mean that there aren't a few suits at the top collecting insane salaries.
  - adityasaky 7y ago
    I didn't say that?
aitchnyu 7y ago
To nitpick, the underlying tech is UPI (United Payments Interface), of which BHIM is one of the interoperable apps. I see more Google Pay users. It picks my phone contacts, and even uses inaudible sounds to pair phones.
wtmt 7y ago
There are some exaggerations and factual errors in your claims. > Transferring money from one personal account to any new account (adding a beneficiary account) would take more than 4 hours. NEFT, which has been around for a long time before IMPS and UPI came, would transfer money in about an hour's time. For larger transactions, RTGS would transfer within a few minutes. I agree that UPI is a lot faster, but it comes with lower transfer limits. Four hours for a transfer through NEFT or RTGS could be extreme cases, since RBI has some tightly stipulated deadlines for credit to the receiver's account for both (you can check RBI's website for more information). > - Transferring money doesn't have any extra charges Well, UPI transactions do have fees, depending on the bank. IIRC Kotak introduced or was set to introduce charges for it. The rest of them would've followed, since NPCI is not a government organization (like RBI), but a private consortium of banks. But RBI's recent notification removing transaction charges for NEFT and RTGS (which are owned and run on RBI) may have given pause to banks wanting to charge for UPI. > - Safe, transaction can be done only from mobile which is linked with bank. The "only" needs to be removed here. UPI transactions can be done from mobile, but can also be done from any computer or device with a browser if one has online banking and the particular bank supports UPI over that. > There is no need to give personal information, one can provide UPI address or Virtual UPI address. Your (recipient's) real name would still be visible to the payer on the payment confirmation screen. I consider name also as personal information, if you really want to remove all real identifiers from transactions and make it seem like it's anonymous.
- mayankkaizen 7y ago
  In recent development, RBI has issued guidelines to make IMPS free of charges to promote digital banking.
gingabriska 7y ago
> Master Card and Visa are failing, because we have something better in place. Not entirely true, India has made payments cubersome to make a transfer through visa/mc, you need to go through lengthy 3d verification even then some cards are issued with International transaction disabled and there is no way to enable it on those card without changing your card to International debit card. There is no way to purchase anything from an international website using UPI or Rupay card or many issued debit cards. Secondly, getting merchant services to process foreign card is not easy and this makes building SaaS in India impossible unless you happen to be among few lucky people who have American companies registered to their name. India needs to get rid of these protectionist policies and I've no idea why America doesn't put more pressure on India to open itself up to international market, not only does it improve quality of life of people of India but also enables local people to have quality tools through which they can produce better output. Get all quality hardware/electronics/tools gadget at the price without any import duties or taxes and local makers win. If Indians vote for me, I remove custom duties from electronics then from machineries and finally I remove tax from food items because there is only so much a person can eat. I don't understand why food items have to have taxes. Right now, India is trapped in hand of few politically supported corporate houses who have all power to exploit Indian resources but closed to foreign companies. If either way people of India loose, it's better to lose with multiple options in your hand. America can easily make India change its way, put large tarrif on software outsourcing which goes to India and demand removal of traffic placed on Chinese/American goods. Remove that crap policy which demands you must have Indian stake in corporation before you can setup shop in India because anyone can go go America and setup shop there, so why India is some special snowflake? Indians can't buy German tools because and they've to do with locally made shoddy tools which results in crap quality of output. This will not change in India why? Because every major political party depends on those industrial houses for their money and won't do anything which threatens their existence. When people ask me why Ambani is so rich, what exactly did he invent or what exactly are they do which is comparable to world class production. I tell them they are rich because India is a protectionist country. I am not from India but living in India for quite sometime before I lived in china and before that in Europe. I see lots of desire in Indian people to make their work and life better but all tools are made twice as expensive as a result they are stuck with low quality local options who enrich few of the industrial houses who are in bed with political parties of India.
mayankkaizen 7y ago
Also, with UPI, you don't have to add beneficiary. Money transfer is instant (although there may be limit for the amount to be transferred). Seriously, this UPI mechanism is absolutely killer.
happppy 7y ago
Pakistan also has such system. I have linked my bank account with my mobile phone number. I don't even have to use any app, a simple code and I can transfer money to same bank or another bank account, pay bills, recharge, all account info, mini bank statement etc and all this happens in seconds.

nunez 7y ago

I completely believe it. I spent two months in Hyderabad. India is WAYYY ahead on the payments game. Every business, no matter the size, accepted mobile payments (usually PayTM, but I saw support for PhonePe, Zeta and others). The US is super behind on this; very, very, very few retailers accept Square Cash, more accept PayPal, none of them accept those payments easily. Any app that does mobile banking requires KYC verification. For mobile payments, usually support soft KYC, which you can easily fake, but only lasts 180 days. For anything else online banking related, hard (in-person) KYC was required. Every terminal supported credit/debit cards (though using international cards was a crap-shoot, and AMEX even more so) and all of them expected Chip + PIN. People were legitimately surprised when they saw that I had to sign. Some didn't even ask for the signature because they weren't used to it. Everything in India uses SMS OTP and requires an India phone number to receive it. This was super annoying before getting a Indian SIM card, but once I did, I realized how nice of a system this was. There were many things about the India experience that I wasn't a fan of; paying for stuff was definitely not one of htem.

kamaal 7y ago
>>India is WAYYY ahead on the payments game. Only if you(and the person receiving) can afford a smart phone, and an internet connection. The edge US has is the cards are ubiquitous, they cost nothing to carry and use. Every one has them, and every one receiving them has the readers. Most credit unions don't charge for checking accounts, and transaction fees are $0. US is WAYYY ahead on the payments access game.
- gingabriska 7y ago
  Not just that but getting an account to process international card is very difficult in India and setting up recurring payments or SaaS very difficult.
  - nonamechicken 7y ago
    I recently tried to buy Office 365 from MS India. It just kept on failing with my India debit card even though it accepts both debit/credit cards. The error message was not helpful and finally came to know from customer care that it was due to the debit card. So, it can go both ways.
  - sfifs 7y ago
    Recurring payments have been intentionally blocked by the banking regulator in India by requiring 2FA for every online transaction to prevent abuse/fraud. It is a known pain intentionally traded off - hopefully will get fixed at some point. I think the issue with international cards is also likely linked to online transaction 2FA policy. Some American banks don't implement 2FA and that's likely the reason they fail. I've never had a problem with my Singapore card.
- sfifs 7y ago
  > Only if you(and the person receiving) can afford a smart phone, and an internet connection The number of people in India who can likely exceeds adult population of the United States :-)
- taobility 7y ago

adityasaky 7y ago

Just to add on: NPCI is a not-for-profit organization which is a consortium of banks and is promoted by the Reserve Bank of India. And these guys absolutely kill it. I moved from India to the US last year and payments are overall so much more complicated here. I have to download a third party app and even my bank, at least as far as I can tell, doesn't have a straightforward mechanism to transfer money to other people without using Zelle. NPCI came up with IMPS, which is also what UPI is partially built upon I think. IMPS worked for basically every bank and you could transfer to every other bank instantly, usually via that bank's app or website. UPI almost took it to an IM-ing money level.

gingabriska 7y ago
Not for profit doesn't mean free from outside influences.
- zelon88 7y ago
  It also doesn't mean that there aren't a few suits at the top collecting insane salaries.
- adityasaky 7y ago
  I didn't say that?

aitchnyu 7y ago

To nitpick, the underlying tech is UPI (United Payments Interface), of which BHIM is one of the interoperable apps. I see more Google Pay users. It picks my phone contacts, and even uses inaudible sounds to pair phones.

wtmt 7y ago

There are some exaggerations and factual errors in your claims. > Transferring money from one personal account to any new account (adding a beneficiary account) would take more than 4 hours. NEFT, which has been around for a long time before IMPS and UPI came, would transfer money in about an hour's time. For larger transactions, RTGS would transfer within a few minutes. I agree that UPI is a lot faster, but it comes with lower transfer limits. Four hours for a transfer through NEFT or RTGS could be extreme cases, since RBI has some tightly stipulated deadlines for credit to the receiver's account for both (you can check RBI's website for more information). > - Transferring money doesn't have any extra charges Well, UPI transactions do have fees, depending on the bank. IIRC Kotak introduced or was set to introduce charges for it. The rest of them would've followed, since NPCI is not a government organization (like RBI), but a private consortium of banks. But RBI's recent notification removing transaction charges for NEFT and RTGS (which are owned and run on RBI) may have given pause to banks wanting to charge for UPI. > - Safe, transaction can be done only from mobile which is linked with bank. The "only" needs to be removed here. UPI transactions can be done from mobile, but can also be done from any computer or device with a browser if one has online banking and the particular bank supports UPI over that. > There is no need to give personal information, one can provide UPI address or Virtual UPI address. Your (recipient's) real name would still be visible to the payer on the payment confirmation screen. I consider name also as personal information, if you really want to remove all real identifiers from transactions and make it seem like it's anonymous.

mayankkaizen 7y ago
In recent development, RBI has issued guidelines to make IMPS free of charges to promote digital banking.

gingabriska 7y ago

> Master Card and Visa are failing, because we have something better in place. Not entirely true, India has made payments cubersome to make a transfer through visa/mc, you need to go through lengthy 3d verification even then some cards are issued with International transaction disabled and there is no way to enable it on those card without changing your card to International debit card. There is no way to purchase anything from an international website using UPI or Rupay card or many issued debit cards. Secondly, getting merchant services to process foreign card is not easy and this makes building SaaS in India impossible unless you happen to be among few lucky people who have American companies registered to their name. India needs to get rid of these protectionist policies and I've no idea why America doesn't put more pressure on India to open itself up to international market, not only does it improve quality of life of people of India but also enables local people to have quality tools through which they can produce better output. Get all quality hardware/electronics/tools gadget at the price without any import duties or taxes and local makers win. If Indians vote for me, I remove custom duties from electronics then from machineries and finally I remove tax from food items because there is only so much a person can eat. I don't understand why food items have to have taxes. Right now, India is trapped in hand of few politically supported corporate houses who have all power to exploit Indian resources but closed to foreign companies. If either way people of India loose, it's better to lose with multiple options in your hand. America can easily make India change its way, put large tarrif on software outsourcing which goes to India and demand removal of traffic placed on Chinese/American goods. Remove that crap policy which demands you must have Indian stake in corporation before you can setup shop in India because anyone can go go America and setup shop there, so why India is some special snowflake? Indians can't buy German tools because and they've to do with locally made shoddy tools which results in crap quality of output. This will not change in India why? Because every major political party depends on those industrial houses for their money and won't do anything which threatens their existence. When people ask me why Ambani is so rich, what exactly did he invent or what exactly are they do which is comparable to world class production. I tell them they are rich because India is a protectionist country. I am not from India but living in India for quite sometime before I lived in china and before that in Europe. I see lots of desire in Indian people to make their work and life better but all tools are made twice as expensive as a result they are stuck with low quality local options who enrich few of the industrial houses who are in bed with political parties of India.

mayankkaizen 7y ago

Also, with UPI, you don't have to add beneficiary. Money transfer is instant (although there may be limit for the amount to be transferred). Seriously, this UPI mechanism is absolutely killer.

happppy 7y ago

Pakistan also has such system. I have linked my bank account with my mobile phone number. I don't even have to use any app, a simple code and I can transfer money to same bank or another bank account, pay bills, recharge, all account info, mini bank statement etc and all this happens in seconds.