The RBI has announced the offline version of UPI, the UPI123Pay, which will allow feature phone users to access India’s most successful deep-tech innovation to date.
RBI governor Shaktikanta Das had announced his intention to launch UPI for feature phones in December 2021.
How UPI 123pay will work on feature phones?
Step 1: The user will have to link their bank account with their feature phones.
Step 2: The user would then have to set up their UPI pin by using their debit card details.
Step 3: To make payments, the user will have to call an IVR number ‘080 4516 3666’ and select the payment option — money transfer, LPG gas refill, Fastag recharge, mobile recharge, EMI payment, balance check and more.
Step 4: To transfer the money to a peer, the users can simply select the ‘money transfer’ option and send the contact. The user will then have to enter the amount to be transferred and the UPI pin to make the transfer. This feature can be used to make payments to friends, family, shops and more.
How to make missed call based payments?
Step 1: The central bank has also launched a missed call payments feature, which will allow a user to make a UPI payment by simply giving a missed call on the merchant/shop’s number.
Step 2: The user would have to give a missed call on the number given to them by the merchant/shopkeeper. The number acts as the ID for the said merchant.
Step 3: A pop-up will appear on the phone screen, just like in other payment modes, asking the user to add the amount to be transferred and confirm the payments by adding their UPI pin.
How to make sound-based payments?
One of the novel features of UPI123Pay is the ability to use sound technology to make payments at merchant outlets.
A user can access the feature via the app and the IVR. The selected interface will generate a sound wave, which a receiver present at the merchant outlet picks up and decodes as a payment made to the merchant.
In short, it works like NFC, but with sound waves.
UPI123Pay will allow 400 million feature phone users in India to participate in the digital payments ecosystem of India. These purchases can be completed via SMS and do not require an internet connection. The UPI123Pay feature is available in several Indian languages.