The expanded form of UPI is
Unified Payment Interface
UPI is the Unified Payments Interface — option 3.
What it is. A real-time payment system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India and launched in 2016. Its central idea is in its name: it unifies many bank accounts into a single mobile application and provides a common interface, so that a payment can be made from any account to any account without either party knowing the other’s bank details.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Built by | NPCI, an umbrella organisation set up by the RBI and the Indian Banks’ Association |
| Launched | 2016 |
| Address | A Virtual Payment Address such as name@bank, so the account number need not be shared |
| Availability | 24 hours a day, every day of the year, including holidays |
| Cost | No charge to the user for person-to-person transfers |
Why it succeeded. Three things came together — the spread of cheap smartphones and cheap data, the Jan Dhan accounts that gave hundreds of millions of people a bank account, and Aadhaar for identity. The combination is often called the JAM trinity. UPI now handles well over a thousand crore transactions a month, more than any other real-time payment system in the world, and it has been extended to Singapore, the UAE, France, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Mauritius among others.
Other NPCI systems worth knowing: RuPay cards, IMPS for immediate transfers, NACH for bulk payments, AePS for Aadhaar-enabled banking, BHIM as the reference UPI app, and FASTag for tolls.
How to read such a question. Three of the options are invented phrases built from plausible words. The giveaway is the last word: an interface is a precise technical term for a common standard through which different systems talk to one another, which is exactly what UPI is; “initiation” and “inception” describe nothing.
Hence, the answer is Unified Payment Interface.
Important Questions from Banking Affairs
Who has been appointed as the new Chairman and Managing Director of SIDBI, in April 2021?
What is the picture on the reverse side of the new 2000 rupee note of the Mahatma Gandhi (New) series?
As per the provisions of Union Budget 2021-22, how many public sector banks have been lined up for disinvestment?
Which country has the largest number of bank branches in the world?
Which bank's tag line is, "Badhti ka nam Zindagi."?
