NPCI moving to give netbanking a UPI-like makeover

Mumbai: You’re about to pay for a purchase on a popular e-commerce website from your mobile, but your bank doesn’t show up in the netbanking list. Explaining how it will work for the consumer, Rahul Jain, CFO of payment aggregator NTT Data Payment Services India, which is part of the pilot, said that Netbanking 2.0 will bring the flavour of UPI to netbanking by redirecting customers to the mobile app of their bank on the phone for executing payments. Currently, netbanking transactions are estimated to account for about 10-15% of total transaction volumes for payment aggregators, whereas UPI payments account for about 50% and credit card transactions for 20-25% of the payments, according to industry experts. “So, they have now started working with banks on a front-end interface for netbanking, wherein a common page will be hosted by NBBL where all the banks will be integrated at the back-end and the customers just need to enter their details to make the payment or transfer," said Patel, who is also chairman of industry body Payments Council of India. While some believe that NPCI’s move will benefit both banks and payment aggregators, allowing for standardised tie-ups across the board, others believe that this could hurt some payment platforms if it leads to lower or UPI-like costing for netbanking payments.