Mumbai, March 18 (IANS). To prevent digital fraud, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is interacting with banks to remove ‘Bridge Transaction’ on UPI.
Most digital fraud bridge through UPI is done through transactions. Now NPCI’s attempt is to reduce the fraud by removing this feature.
When requests are sent by merchants to customers for payment, it is called ‘Bridge Transaction’. At the same time, when the customer transactions through QR or any other means, it is called ‘push transactions’.
The NDTV Profit report reported that removing the ‘bridge transaction’ may reduce the number of fraud cases, but some bankers say that this will also affect the correct transactions and it will affect the efficiency.
No statement has been made by the NPCI, a government company operating retail payment and settlement systems in India.
The report stated that the negotiation is yet to be done in the initial phase and the final decision is yet to be taken on implementing it.
This development has happened at a time when UPI is becoming increasingly popular in the country. In February alone, the number of UPI transactions crossed 16 billion, the total transaction price was more than Rs 21 lakh crore.
In 2024, the number of UPI transactions increased by 46 percent to 172.2 billion on an annual basis, which was 117.7 billion in 2023.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently emphasized the importance of an awareness initiative to educate people about these frauds.
RBI data shows that complaints related to digital payments and loans remain a major concern. Between April and June of the current financial year, the RBI Lokpal received 14,401 complaints. At the same time, 12,744 complaints have been filed in the next quarter of July to September.
The Financial Stability report of December 2024 states that in the first half of the 2024-25 financial year, the share of issues related to loans and digital payments was more than 70 percent of the total complaints.
-IANS
ABS/