UPI to tap 10-15 e-tailers in coming two months

The government-backed Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which allows money to be transferred between bank accounts through customers’ smartphones, could be tapping as many as 10-15 ecommerce merchants in the coming months, so that people can pay for online shopping more comfortably.

"In the next one or two months, a sizeable number of ecommerce merchants will go live on UPI. That's what our effort is. At least 10-15 merchants will be going live so that we can get good traffic," Dilip Asbe, COO of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), told ET.

As of now, UPI platform, launched on August 25th, is offering person-to-person transactions via 21 banks.

"Many providers will also come now, which will layer user services like bill payments and mobile top-ups, which will ride on UPI platform," Asbe told when asked about upcoming plans.

As per reports, the online merchants expected to join UPI include eBay, MakeMyTrip and Pepperfry; for mobile bill payments, players like BSNL, MTNL and Idea Cellular are slated to be partnered with.

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