Google announced that it introduced UPI Autopay as a payment option on the Play Store to allow its users in the country to purchase subscriptions using UPI. UPI Autopay, introduced under UPI 2.0 by NPCI, helps customers make recurring payments using any UPI application that supports the feature.
With the help of UPI Autopay, setting up subscriptions is easy. After selecting a subscription plan for purchase, users need to simply tap on the payment method in the cart, select “Pay with UPI”, and then approve the purchase in their supported UPI app. The addition will be handy for those who use a subscription on apps such as Google One, Adobe, Microsoft Office,etc as users now no longer need to worry about making the repeated payments on time and risk deactivation of premium benefits in case they forget to do the same.
The governing body overseeing UPI, the National Payment Corporation of India, launched the UPI Autopay service in 2020 to expand UPI to recurring transactions. It, however, received little interest last year when companies, including Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar, in the country enabled UPI Autopay on their apps. This resulted from the Reserve Bank of India’s payment rule that requires banks, financial institutions and payment gateways to obtain additional approval for auto-recurring transactions worth over 5,000 Indian rupees ($62).
