New Delhi: The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is developing a new technology to make payments through UPI without an internet connection, Business Standard reported. This facility will help in making payments easily during flights (In-flight), in underground metro trains and in areas where there is no internet signal.
Tap to Pay: It is planned to allow transactions up to Rs. 2,000 without internet. This service works through NFC or Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. Payment can be made by touching the smartphone to the Point of Sale (PoS) machine. Since this will be a ‘UPI Lite’ wallet-based system, there is no need to enter the UPI PIN for the transaction.
How does UPI work without internet?
When there is internet, users need to load money into their UPI Lite wallet. When there is no internet, the transaction is completed by tapping the NFC-enabled smartphone to the merchant’s PoS machine.
The PoS machine stores this payment details and syncs it with the network as soon as it gets an internet connection.
Two to three years ago, the UPI Lite X feature was launched by NPCI. This allows payments to be made offline through UPI Lite without mobile connectivity. Here, both the payer and the recipient must be NFC-enabled.
Now, NPCI is extending the same feature to POSs as well. That is, payments can be made through UPI Lite without internet at NFC-enabled POSs. Here, payments can be made using NFC even if the internet connection is disconnected on both the POS and the mobile.