UPI Circle Feature With Access to Secondary User Payments Rolled Out in India by NPCI

UPI Circle allows users to assign trusted secondary users to let them access their UPI accounts.

Written by Akash Dutta, Edited by Siddharth Suvarna | Updated: 3 September 2024 15:29 IST

UPI Circle Feature With Access to Secondary User Payments Rolled Out in India by NPCI

Photo Credit: Unsplash/David Dvoracek

Recently, Google Pay announced the integration of UPI Circle in its payments app

Highlights

With UPI Circle, users can make payments even without a UPI account
NPCI says parents can use the feature to empower their children
Secondary users need to use app passcodes or biometrics for transactions

UPI Circle, the latest innovation in Unified Payments Interface (UPI) was rolled out by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) last week. The feature allows UPI users to enable trusted people by letting them have access to their accounts. This way, those even without a UPI account can make transactions with the payment instrument. As per NPCI, the feature is aimed at empowering secondary users who might be financially dependent to access UPI. Last week, Google Pay announced that it will be integrating the feature into its payment app in the country.

NPCI Rolls Out UPI Circle

In a post, NPCI detailed the feature. As per the agency, UPI Circle will allow primary users, who are defined as people with a UPI account linked with their bank account, to authorise secondary users, who may or may not have a UPI account, to perform transactions from the primary user's account. The feature does come with layers of intervention and security measures.

With the UPI feature, primary users can go to the UPI app of their choice and add the secondary users by scanning a QR code or entering a UPI ID. Manual entry of phone numbers is not allowed at present. Once that is done, secondary users can set up a UPI account and register themselves to use the feature. NPCI highlights that the user must secure the app with either passcodes or biometric authentication to be able to make transactions.

Google Pay Will Roll Out These New UPI Features in India Soon

There are two divisions for secondary users as well — partial delegation and full delegation. Partial delegation will require the primary user to approve the transaction every time before the payment can be made. With full delegation, secondary users will have a maximum monthly limit, but they can independently make transactions without requiring permission.

NPCI has set the maximum monthly delegation limit at Rs. 15,000 where a single transaction cannot exceed Rs. 5,000. Also, for the first 24 hours, the secondary user will have a limit of Rs. 5,000. The agency claims that the primary user will have the option to monitor the activity of the secondary users on the app. A primary user can set different maximum limits (under Rs. 15,000) for different secondary users.

Notably, a primary user can add up to five secondary users, however, a secondary user can only accept a single primary user. The primary user can also revoke access to the secondary user at any given time.

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Further reading: NPCI, UPI Circle, India, UPI

Akash Dutta Email Akash Dutta

Akash Dutta is a Senior Sub Editor at Gadgets 360. He is particularly interested in the social impact of technological developments and loves reading about emerging fields such as AI, metaverse, and fediverse. In his free time, he can be seen supporting his favourite football club - Chelsea, watching movies and anime, and sharing passionate opinions on food. More