Google Pay, PhonePe Rolling Out Auto-Debit Via UPI Soon For Mobile Bills, OTT, EMIs, Insurance & More!

As per the reports, PhonePe and Google Pay are planning to offer recurring payment mandates to their users through working with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

How Will This Help?

With this new facility, a large number of customers can opt for the auto-debit facility for monthly payments including mobile phone bills, electricity bills, EMIs, media subscriptions, and insurance premiums through these applications.

According to the sources, “both Google Pay and PhonePe have started work on the recurring payments platform. They could be expected to go live within a month or so,”.

Currently, it is in the testing phase before being offered to millions of users of these payment applications.

So far the Digital payment majors have not responded to any queries.

How Does NPCI Recurring Payment Work?

Prior to this, on July 22, the NPCI has launched the recurring payment facility with large banks such as State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, and Axis Bank.

With the use of this facility, UPI users can facilitate the recurring payment simply by authenticating the transaction through the UPI pin. 

Currently, this system can allow recurring payments of only up to Rs 2,000 as per regulatory norms.

According to the sources, “UPI auto-debit feature will transform recurring payment facilities and help merchants ease up the payments process, there are more than 10 banks which have started this. More will be joining the ecosystem,”. 

So far, Google Pay and PhonePe being the major payment applications can bring in a lot of users in a single shot. 

As per the industry estimates, both of these apps have a user base in the 60 to 70 million range.

The users will need to authenticate the mandate once through a pin and after that, depending on the period chosen, the transactions will be processed regularly for the auto-debit feature.

According to the latest NPCI data, UPI recorded almost 1.5 billion transactions in July month further supporting the settlement of close to Rs 3 lakh crore. 

Considering the figures, it has emerged as one of the fastest-growing digital payment modes in the country and also has attracted the attention of global technology players such as Google, Amazon and Facebook.

With the addition of the recurring payments opening up on UPI, the volumes are expected to expand further.