Unified Payment Interface (Upi)
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UNIFIED PAYMENT INTERFACE (UPI) Report of Work done at IDRBT during Summer Internship 2018 by K. Spandana, B-Tech, 4th year, CSE VR Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada Under the guidance of Dr. N.V. Narendra Kumar CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABSTRACT 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………5 1.1. Objectives 1.2. Structure of the Report 2. UPI ARCHITECTURE……………………………………….7 2.1. Architecture 2.2. Concepts 2.3. Existing Systems 2.4. Supporting Infrastructure 2.5. Benefits 2.6. Security Considerations 2.7. Perceived Risks and Mitigation 2.8. Applications 3. NPCI…………………………………………………………20 3.1. Role of NPCI 4. UPI TRANSACTIONS………………………………………24 4.1. Ecosystem 4.2. Pay Request 4.3. API Specifications 5. CONCLUSIONS……………………………………………...43 REFERENCES ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Behind every achievement lies an unfathomable sea of gratitude to those who activated it, without whom it would ever have come into existence. To them I lay the words of gratitude imprinted with me. I would like to thank IDRBT for giving an opportunity and the necessary facilities and also the staff of admin and library for their support. I would like to thank my guide Dr. N.V.Narendra kumar, for his timely valuable guidance and suggestions for this report. I would like to thank all who have been inspiring guides and committed caretakers and who have given me the moral support in every situation of my internship career. This encouragement and support by them, especially in carrying out this report motivated me to complete this study. My sincere thanks to, V. R. Siddhartha Engineering College and also my friends who encouraged me to pursue this internship ABSTRACT This report studies Unified Payment Interface (UPI), a new age payment system introduced in India by National Payment Corporation of India. Unified Payment Interface is a mobile based, real time interbank payment system which has the potential to universalize digital payments in India. The report traces the evolution of payments systems in India and examines in detail the technology behind Unified Payment Interface focusing on its architecture and security systems. Its modular API based architecture will enable development of innovative solutions for consumers and businesses. UPI is currently in its infancy stage and development of merchant based UPI solutions will greatly increase the user adoption. Keywords: unified payment interface, IMPS, NPCI, fund transfer. 1.INTRODUCTION Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an instant real-time payment system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood. It also provide the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience. UPI is developed by national payments corporation of India. The interface is regulated by the Reserve bank of India and works by instantly transferring funds between two bank accounts on a mobile platform. It is built over a Immediate payment service for fund transfer. With the above context in mind, NPCI conducted a pilot launch with 21 member banks. The pilot launch was held on 11th April 2016 by Dr. Raghuram G Rajan, Governor, RBI at Mumbai. Banks have started to upload their UPI enabled Apps on Google Play store from 25th August, 2016 onwards. 1.1. Objective The main objective of a unified system is to offer an architecture and a set of standard APIs to facilitate the next generation online immediate payments leveraging trends such as increasing smartphone adoption, Indian language interfaces, and universal access to Internet and data. The following are the some of the key aspects of the unified payments interface. 1. The unified payment interface is expected to perform easy instant payments via mobile, web and other applications. 2. The payments can be initiated by both payer and payee and are carried out in a secure, convenient and integrated fashion. 3. This design provide an ecosystem driven scalable architecture and a set of APIs taking full advantage of mass adoption of smartphone. 4. Capabilities include virtual payment addresses, 1-click 2- factor authentication, Aadhaar integration, and use of payer’s smartphone for secure credential capture. 5. It allows banks and other players to innovate and offer a superior customer experience to make electronic payments convenient and secure. 6. Supports the growth of e-commerce, while simultaneously meeting the target of financial inclusion. 1.2. Structure of the Report This particular report studies the following concepts 1. In section 2 we study about the UPI architecture, existing systems, benefits and applications of the UPI. 2. In section 3 we study about the role of NPCI and its involvement in the UPI. 3. In section 4 we study about the different transaction types, transacting parties, transaction flow and the API’s involved in the transaction. 4. Section 5 concludes the report. 2.UPI ARCHITECTURE 2.1. Architecture The following diagram is the architecture of UPI allowing USSD, smartphone, Internet banking and other channel integration onto a common layer at NPCI. This common layer organise the transactions and ensure settlement across accounts using systems such as IMPS, AEPS, NFS, E-com etc. Usage of existing systems ensure reliability of payment transactions across various channels and also takes full advantage of all the investments so far. Fig: 2.1 UPI ARCHITECTURE[1] Here, the merchant sites collect the payment through the virtual address avoiding the need to provide the account details or the sensitive information on websites or third party applications. Within this solution the payment authentication and authorization are always done using the personal mobile. 2.2. Concepts Every payment has the following core elements 1. The account details of payer and the payee for routing and authentication purpose. 2. Authentication credentials. 3. Transaction amount. 4. Time stamp. 2.2.1. Payment Address The payment address is unique for every user. It is very flexible and can be changed. This address is linked with our mobile number and the account number. Since it is not our actual payment address but act as the bank account details, it is called as virtual payment address (VPA). Provider is expected to map the payment address to actual account details at appropriate time. Providers who provide virtual addresses should expose the address translation API for converting their virtual addresses to an address that can be used by NPCI. 2.2.2. Authentication Authentication is the process of recognizing something or someone’s identity. In the terms of transaction, the communication takes place between the two parties such that both the parties have to share the required details among themselves so that the identity of each party is known to the other. In UPI a special benefit of single click 2 factor authentication is allowed. It mainly has two levels of security. 1. Device fingerprinting acts as the first factor of the security. Here one’s bank account is linked to his/her own UPI app. As a result the NPCI servers acquire all the device details of the user. Therefore, the combination of the user’s mobile number and device ID is linked to the unique account number. This combination acts as the first factor authentication. 2. The second level of the security is the M-PIN. Here when one linked his bank account with the UPI app he is asked to generate a MPIN which is only known to him. As a result during every transaction the user is asked to enter his MPIN. 2.2.3.Authorization Authorization is the process of allowing the user to access the resources. For example, if an user logs into a computer, the system checks what resources that particular user is allowed to access based on the permissions provided to him. These permissions are set by the system administrator. Logically, the authorization is preceded by the authentication. 2.3. Existing Systems Before the development of unified payment interface NPCI developed many other payment infrastructures. The existing systems are as follows 1. NFS: The National financial switch (NFS) set the common standard and enabled digital interoperability between all banks in the country. NFS is now the backbone which powers the largest domestic ATM network in the country. 2. RTGS: The Real time gross settlement system is the continuous process of settling payments on an individual order basis without netting debits with credits across the books of a central bank (e.g. bundling transactions). Once completed, real time gross settlement payments are irrevocable. 3. NEFT: National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) is a nation-wide payment system. Under this Scheme, individuals can electronically transfer funds from any bank branch to any individual having an account with any other bank branch in the country participating in the Scheme. NEFT transactions are settled in batches. 2.3.1. Limitations 1. RTGS and NEFT are unsuitable for small ticket digital retail payments. 2. High transaction limits. 3. Delayed settlements in batches 4. Fixed operating time hours Thus NPCI introduced IMPS (immediate payment service), a real time retail payment service with round the clock availability. IMPS is channel independent and can be accessed through mobile phone, internet, ATM and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) on feature phones. IMPS provided a mobile based interoperable fund transfer service involving various stakeholders such as banks, merchants, and telecom service providers. IMPS works on immediate settlement where settlement takes place on at a granular transaction level with instant transaction confirmation to both the remitter and the beneficiary. IMPS transactions were enabled through mobile phones and can be considered the precursor to Unified Payment Interface (UPI), since UPI transactions are settled through IMPS. 2.4. Supporting Infrastructure The built facilities that support the unified payment interface is as follows 1. Aadhaar system 2.