In a complete u-turn, the National Payments Corporation of India asked Flipkart to follow UPI norms and allow transactions from all handles on its PhonePe app.
Flipkart’s PhonePe app asks the user to open a UPI handle on the app. Users cannot use their UPI handles of other banks, say bankers. Flipkart and Yes Bank have come together to launch PhonePe.
ICICI Bank had blocked transactions on PhonePe. According to ICICI it is contravention of the interoperability norms under unified payment interface.
Chronological Events:
- The PhonePe app is Flipkart’s payment app for online transactions using UPI
- Flipkart has not let other UPI handles to be used on its site
- It tells the users to open a new handle, which in effect, makes the customer having a UPI handle of Yes Bank
- This is contravention of the interoperability norms under UPI
- ICICI had blocked the app citing security concerns
Advising ICICI Bank to open up UPI transactions made through PhonePe, NPCI in a statement released earlier today stated,
“Based on a review by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on ICICI Bank’s action to block Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions made through the PhonePe App, we would like to state that ICICI Bank has been advised to open UPI transactions immediately.
The bank retorted back accusing the Flipkart and Yes Bank-run wallet of following “restrictive practice” and asking for a change before it complies.
In a complete U-turn, the NPCI also asked Flipkart to allow payments from UPI handles of all banks on their apps.
“During a review of ICICI Bank blocking the UPI transactions made through Flipkart’s PhonePe, we have found the said e-wallet and the Flipkart apps are in contravention of the UPI guidelines of interoperability. Hence, we have directed PhonePe and Flipkart to comply with the UPI guidelines and allow payments from UPI handles of all banks on their apps,” NPCI said in a statement yesterday.
