Uber has launched UPI-based payments system on its app in India. UPI stands for Unified Payments Interface, and allows users to make payments directly from the bank account, rather than relying on cash, digital wallet or their debit card information. The government of India had launched a UPI-based app called BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) last year, which is integrated with UPI. In Uber’s case, a user will now have the option of direct integration with the UPI platform to make payments. It should be noted that rival Ola had has the option of making UPI-based payments for sometime now on the Android app. “We now have over a 1000 people working in India, and many of those are engineers working on the Uber app. India is one of our most important markets, and the numbers continue to grow. We have over 4.5 lakh drivers in India, and we are committed to adding technological innovation for India, as evidenced in this UPI integration,” said David Richter, SVP-Global Business, who was present at the announcement. Also present at Uber’s announcement was Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology and Law & Justice. “Indian digital economy is poised for big growth. When I say I growth, I mean in communications, cyber security, IT services, digital payments, electronic manufacturing. Digital payments in India are worth $500 billion, and the government of India wants to scale this to $1 trillion. The integration of Uber app with UPI-BHIM will boost the digital economy of India further,” said Prasad at the launch event. Uber’s new UPI integration is only launched for riders, and the feature will take time to roll out for all users. For drivers, the company is still working on UPI integration. Uber says users should see the new payment option reflect in a couple of days. While we could see the feature on Android phones, on iOS it is not yet present so that could take time. UPI will be added as another payment option in the Uber, and a user can then link their account to the app. Just like in the BHIM app, the mobile number is linked directly to a bank account, it will work the same way in Uber. A user can also create a new UPI based account for payments. However, a user will have to enter the UPI pin to authorise the transaction, and it will be directly debited from the bank account. Uber says this will make payments more seamless for users, as they won’t have to worry about receiving OTP, which can be an issue when relying on debit/credit cards in India thanks to the RBI guidelines. Also unlike digital wallet Paytm, no minimum balance will be needed for carrying out rides using UPI. Uber says users can create a UPI id via the app itself or even use the one they have synced with BHIM app. The UPI feature will work with 52 banks that are already on board with the National Payments Corporation of India. For the driver side, Uber is encouraging them to adopt the BHIM app, and will eventually help them move to using UPI within the app itself.
