New Delhi, Aug 13
In order to address financial fraud, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has directed banks and payment apps to halt all peer-to-peer (P2P) "collect requests" from October 1.
But merchants can continue to submit collect requests. The "collect request" or "pull transaction" feature allows a user to request money from another subscriber through UPI, a facility often misused by fraudsters to trick users into authorising payments.
When a user attempts a UPI payment on Flipkart, Amazon, Swiggy, or IRCTC apps, these merchants send a collect request to the user's application. The request is processed once the user approves and enters the UPI PIN.
“It is hereby informed that by October 1, 2025, UPI P2P Collect shall not be allowed to be processed in UPI,” NPIC said in a circular. All member banks and UPI apps are prohibited from initiating, routing, or processing UPI P2P transactions, it further said.
At present, the maximum amount a UPI user can “collect” from another person per transaction is Rs 2,000. The number of successful P2P credit transactions is capped at 50 a day. While “collect request” frauds were common in the early days of UPI, these frauds have come down dramatically after NPCI limited the value to around Rs 2,000.