What is UPI Meta? NPCI may plan new feature to streamline online payments: All you need to know

UPI Meta has emerged as a potential game-changer in the digital payments landscape, with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) reportedly exploring this new feature to simplify the online shopping experience.

According to anEconomic Times report citing senior government officials, UPI Meta would allow customers to save their UPI ID directly on e-commerce websites and apps, significantly streamlining the payment process.

What is UPI Meta

Currently, when making online purchases, users must manually select their UPI app and input their preferred UPI ID for each transaction. UPI Meta seeks to eliminate this friction. In essence, it is a system that enables users to “lock in” or securely store their preferred UPI handle—such as a PhonePe or Google Pay ID—on a merchant’s website or app. Much like how card details are tokenised and saved for quicker checkouts, UPI Meta would allow repeat customers to skip the repetitive task of entering payment details, thereby enabling faster and smoother transactions.

Though the feature has not yet been officially announced or implemented, the idea is already reportedly under active consideration by the NPCI. Internal discussions have possibly been held with industry stakeholders, but any formal rollout of UPI Meta will require regulatory clearance from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The main advantage of UPI Meta lies in its ability to reduce the number of steps users currently take to complete a UPI payment. This positions UPI as a more competitive alternative to card-based payments in terms of speed and user experience.

However, as theET report notes, concerns have been raised over possible market concentration. Industry observers fear that the feature may favour dominant UPI players like PhonePe and Google Pay, who could leverage their scale to secure user consent faster, thus enjoying a “first-mover advantage”.

To address such concerns, NPCI has proposed that merchants must seek explicit user consent for each new payment gateway they wish to link with, offering a safeguard against unchecked dominance by a few players.