Bisq proposal - UPI

bisq-proposal-upi.md

Overview

All Indian banks support a peer-to-peer payment interface called Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on top of the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) for national bank transfers. The remmitance is instantaneous, however each transaction is limited to a maximum of ₹100,000, which is approximately twice that of a typical middle class salary, and today 1 BTC is about ₹610,000.

Ease of access to users

1. Typically UPI is accessible through an UPI enabled application on a smart phone. Besides dedicated payment applications, several other applications with a large userbase like, Truecaller, WhatsApp (beta), also offer UPI.

2. UPI is also available through the online banking interface or mobile applications of all Indian banks.

3. In the absence of Internet connectivity, UPI may also be accessed through the traditional USSD service from any mobile phone in India.

Privacy

1. As UPI relies on an email like unique identifier (typical UPI id: user@provider), banking details can remain private. In-fact, a user may associate multiple bank accounts to an UPI id transparent to the transaction.

2. It is also possible to use your phone number as your UPI id: 9876543210@upi. Unfortunately, many of the applications, including the government advocate using it this way for convenience. This will most definitely compromise a user's privacy.

Charges

At the moment UPI transactions are free, although it is possible that there might be nominal charges in the future.

Risks

1. As an UPI id is an email like string, it is vulnerable to typographical errors.

2. It has the same charge back risk as a national bank transfer.

Required information

• A user has to provide their UPI id: user@provider

• After completion of the payment, the payee may provide the UTR number as "proof of payment", so that the recipient can identify the transaction with ease.

  A peer-to-peer UPI transaction includes the UPI id and the UTR number like this: -user@provider-- in the "narration" field of the transaction. This can be confirmed from the online banking interface.

  It is also visible in the transaction history on the mobile application, however the terminology (e.g. UTR vs transaction id), and where the information is displayed varies from provider to provider.

Sorry, for such a late response. I got distracted with other things. Yes, it's just an easier interface to the instanteneous remittance feature of national bank transfers in India.