Online Payment Without Internet: NPCI Launches Offline UPI 'Tap-And-Pay' Up To Rs 2,000
New Delhi: The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is developing a Unified Payments Interface (UPI) capability, allowing a customer to pay at a merchant’s point-of-sale terminal.
The UPI capability would have the facility to conduct transaction even when neither device has internet access. The system would use near-field communication technology and allow payments of up to Rs 2,000 by tapping an NFC-enabled phone on an offline terminal.
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The project would facilitate making payment at locations where connectivity is unavailable or unreliable. It can be used in hill stations where there is no network or the network is slow.
A PoS terminal is the merchant-side hardware commonly used to accept debit and credit cards, prepaid cards and mobile-wallet payments. This terminal would store the payment authorisation and forward it once connectivity returns.
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In 2023, NPCI introduced UPI Lite X to support transactions when mobile connectivity is unavailable. Unlike UPI Lite, which avoids real-time access to the remitter bank’s core banking system but normally requires connectivity.
