NPCI Puts Brakes On Inactive UPI IDs; Asks Banks, Payment Apps To Shut Unused Accounts

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has asked banks and payment applications to deactivate all those unified payments interface (UPI) IDs and numbers by the end of this year that have not been active for the past one year.

Some customers change phone numbers without disassociating the previous phone number from the bank account. This, according to the payments corporation, threatens security, reliability, and seamless transactional experience, NPCI said in a statement.

According to NPCI, to maintain security and safety, in the realm of digital payments, customers should regularly review and verify their information within the banking system. This is essential to ensure safe and secured transactional experience. 

“In accordance with the guidelines stipulated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), there exists the possibility of reallocation of the old mobile number to new users. In order to prevent the inadvertent transfer of funds to unintended recipients and safeguard the interests,” NPCI’s chief product officer Kunal Kalawatia said in the circular. 

Some key points from the guidelines include:

• All third party applications and payment service provider (PSP) banks should identify UPI IDs and associated UPI numbers and phone numbers of customers who have not performed any financial (debit or credit) or non-financial transactions for a time period of 1 year from the UPI applications.
• Customers with inward credit block UPI IDs and phone numbers have to re-register in their respective UPI apps for UPI mapper linkage. Customers can make payments, and non-financial transactions using UPI Pin as needed.
• UPI apps shall perform requester validation (ReqValAd) before initiating ‘pay-to-contact’ or ‘pay to mobile number’. 

NPCI further said that during transactions the UPI applications will reflect the customer names instead of the name stored at the application’s end. 

In October, the number of UPI payments crossed the 1,100 mark with a transaction value of INR 17.16 Lakh Cr.

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