UPI- Big news for UPI users. An important change is about to come for crores of users using UPI (Unified Payment Interface). The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has decided that the P2P (peer-to-peer) ‘collect request’ feature will be completely discontinued from October 1, 2025. The purpose of this decision is to make digital transactions more secure and curb the increasing online fraud.
What is Collect Request feature?
This feature allows any user to send a money request to another UPI user. As soon as the other person accepts the request and enters his/her UPI PIN, the amount is transferred. However, over time, this feature became a favorite weapon of scammers. Fraudsters started duping people by sending fake requests, leading to many cases of financial loss.
Merchants have been given relief
NPCI has clarified that this ban will apply only to P2P collect requests. Merchants will be able to use this facility even after October 1. However, there is a plan to tighten KYC rules for merchants, so that fraud can be further reduced.
Existing rules and transaction limits
Currently, any UPI user can send a ‘collect request’ of up to Rs 2,000 in a single transaction. But after the new directive from NPCI, member banks and UPI apps will not be able to process such pull transactions.
What will be the impact on you?
Experts say that this change will not cause much trouble, because the share of pull transactions in the total transactions of UPI is only 3%. This step is an important initiative towards strengthening the security of the digital payment system.
Tremendous increase in UPI transactions
According to Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, while there were only 92 crore UPI transactions in 2017-18, this number will increase to 18,587 crore in 2024-25. This shows a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 114%, which is proof of the growing popularity of digital payments in India.