The UK’s Faster Payments system predates UPI. Free, near-instant payments round the clock. IMPS, the tech that powers UPI, came around 2 years later.
But UPI as a layer on top of IMPS is great, especially the idea of providing an easy you@bank identifier. By contrast Faster Payments is like 102030-12345678. And being designed post iPhone was actually a blessing because it allowed UPI to have a mobile-first deployment strategy.
But UPI also makes a virtue out of necessity: the reality that cards and a protected e-payment mechanism are difficult to organise, especially for India’s less-well off.
This then turns into nationalistic chest thumping about “jealous foreigners”, while completely ignoring real issues around customer protection and scenarios that UPI doesn’t enable.
To be clear: I wish UPI well. I also want to see less opportunities for scammers in UPI and for people to be able to use UPI with confidence knowing they will be easily refunded if things go wrong.
It’s honestly tiresome to have reasoned conversations with nationalistic chest thumpers.
