New Delhi. Many important rules have been changed for millions of users using UPI payment, which will directly impact PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm and all other digital payment apps. The new guidelines issued by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and RBI aim to make digital transactions more secure, transparent and reliable. These changes are to transaction limits, verification process, auto-pay facility and fraud prevention, information about which is very important for every UPI user.

Major changes in transaction limits

Important updates have been made in the transaction limits of UPI which will be applicable according to different categories. The per day limit of Rs 1 lakh for standard UPI transactions remains intact, but for tax payments the per transaction limit has been increased to Rs 5 lakh. For transactions to insurance premium and capital market, a limit of up to Rs 5 lakh has been fixed in 24 hours. Now facility of up to Rs 5 lakh will also be available for payments to government e-marketplace, travel and business. These new rules will be applicable only on Verified Merchant category, which will make high-value payments easier and faster.

KYC and verification process became stricter

To strengthen the security of users, the process of KYC and account linking on UPI has been made more stringent than before. Now while linking any new bank account with UPI, the user will have to go through additional verification, in which extra checking will be done by the bank. This will reduce the risk of unauthorized account addition and fake transactions. Prepaid payment instrument (PPI) holders with full KYC will now be able to transact through any third-party UPI app like Google Pay or PhonePe. This new feature has been recently authorized by RBI, which will provide more flexibility to the users.

New rules for auto-pay and subscription payment

Important changes have also been made in the rules of UPI auto-pay, which will be applicable to OTT subscription, mobile recharge, insurance and other recurring payments. Now the limit of auto-pay per transaction has been increased to Rs 25,000, which was earlier Rs 15,000. This new limit will be applicable to categories like insurance, healthcare and education. For auto-pay transactions up to Rs 1,000, UPI PIN will no longer be required after the first time, which will speed up the payment process. It has now been made mandatory for all UPI apps to send alerts to users 24 hours before every auto-debit, so that users can have complete control over their spending.

New security guidelines to prevent fraud

Many new security guidelines have been implemented to prevent online fraud, which will take immediate action on suspicious transactions. UPI apps will now verify high-risk transactions with an additional OTP and temporarily block payments to unknown numbers. The real-time fraud monitoring system has been upgraded, which detects any unusual activity immediately. If there is repeated wrong PIN entry in an account, the system will automatically lock it. Now a daily limit has also been imposed on balance check, which will prevent misuse through bots.