Online dispute resolution soon for UPI; NPCI will be ‘okay’ even with new umbrella entity: COO Praveena Rai

There could soon be an online dispute resolution system for issues and failures on UPI transactions, the chief operating officer (COO) of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) told CNBC-TV18. Praveena Rai also said that NPCI will be ‘okay’ in the light of a new umbrella entity for payments that the central bank is proposing, given its UPI interoperability proposition.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked Payment Operators to work on dispute resolution which will be effective in a few months, Rai said.  This comes in light of complaints about transaction failures, especially technical declines by banks on UPI transactions.

“RBI has asked Payment Operators to work on an Online Dispute Resolution system, and it will be a cutting-edge standard for dispute resolution,” Rai said.

“Even now, every UPI app has functionality for consumers to raise issues, and our focus is to create awareness on this. Currently, not all issues can be resolved instantaneously. RBI has asked all payment operators to work on creating a frictionless and superior experience,” she said, adding that the ODR will be brought into effect in the coming months.

UPI transactions are nearing the 2 billion monthly volume mark, and could cross the threshold in October, having already seen over a billion transactions in the first 15 days of the month alone. In September, the volume of UPI transactions stood at 1.8 billion, with a total value of Rs 3.29 lakh crore.

RBI has also given a push for interoperable QR codes, and in a notification last week asked all payment system operators using proprietary QR codes to shift to interoperable QR codes, which is UPI QR and Bharat QR, by March 31, 2022.

Rai said it was a good move to bring in industry standards for QR payments.

“It is good for the country to have standards for the industry. Too many types of QRs complicate the process for merchants. There has been a proliferation of nearly 50 MN QRs in the market as in the last 1.5 years merchants have taken to QRs in a big way,” Rai said, though NPCI didn't give a break-up of how many of these were proprietary QR codes.

Asked about RBI's plans to create a new umbrella entity for payments and what it would mean for NPCI’s powers, Rai said the organisation will be “okay”.

RBI is calling for applications to create a new umbrella entity for payments, which will be incorporated as a for-profit, as opposed to the non-profit NPCI.

“It’s always good to be on a competitive edge. With UPI and RuPay we will continue to do our best and that is the right way to approach this. There are over 150 banks on UPI and interoperability on UPI is the key proposition, and as long as we continue to focus on this proposition we should be okay,” Rai said.