In July 2022, 6288.40 crore Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-supported transactions took place to the tune of ₹10,62,991.76 crores in India alone! A total of 338 banks participated in these transactions.

When UPI was launched in India in July 2016, it saw 0.9 crore transactions in total, amounting to a worth of ₹0.38 crore across 33 banks. These figures indicate the exponential increase in the adoption of UPI, a real-time payments system that allows several banks to operate out of a single platform.

Today, UPI has emerged as the backbone of the business world and is leveraged by some of the largest online retailers and local businesses. However, while UPI is a robust system, it is still vulnerable to phishing attacks and other online scams. Investing in a secure UPI payment gateway can help merchants build trust among their consumers, as well as enhance the consumer experience.

Top reasons to opt for a superior, versatile UPI payment gateway

Today, consumers have high expectations from the retail experience, right from the time they log in to a platform to the time when they complete their purchase. No matter which category of product or service they aim to buy, they have no dearth of choices when it comes to their needs. The market is crowded with several brands, eCommerce platforms, and offline stores to choose from.

In this context, offering a seamless payment experience is extremely important for these reasons:

• Offering a superior UPI payment gateway enhances the overall consumer experience and gives businesses a competitive edge. It enables instant payments with a high level of security. It also enables cardless and cashless payments at no extra cost. The sheer convenience of making a payment via one’s mobile phone has contributed to the increase in adoption.
• Cart abandonment is a growing issue. A robust UPI payment gateway ensures that consumers do not abandon their carts simply because they were unable to make a payment. For instance, if their credit card payment keeps timing out or OTPs do not come through, it can lead to a loss of trust and, in turn, a loss of business. A simple 2-step checkout experience can reduce cart abandonment drastically.
• Businesses can also ensure that there is no compromise on data security or the threat of phishing attacks.
• Merchants can also access additional services such as reports, notifications, and settlements enabled by UPI DeepLinks.

Top 4 features of modern UPI payment gateways

Businesses can enhance their consumer’s payment experience and boost sales with these features:

1. Enable multiple UPI options to give consumers the power of choice

According to a Baymard Report, one of the top reasons why consumers abandon their cards is that there are not enough payment options to meet their needs. This is an easily fixable problem with the right tech intervention.

UPI payment gateways enable consumers to choose from a wide range of payment options — from internet banking and debit cards to credit cards and payment apps.

A superior UPI payment gateway enables businesses to offer consumers the power of choice based on what works for them at that moment. Consumers can choose the option they are familiar with, are most comfortable with, or trust the most.

Consumers sometimes also switch from one payment option to another due to any number of reasons. For instance, if they run out of funds in their bank account to make a big purchase, they might opt to use their credit card. Or, if they have CRED coins, they might prefer to go for this option.

It all depends on their comfort level, savviness, and which payment option works best at the time of purchase. Hence, merchants are urged to invest in a robust UPI payment gateway solution that covers all bases.

2. Accept payments via multiple social platforms with a single click

Today, more and more businesses are leveraging messaging apps and social media platforms to connect with consumers, promote products, and drive sales. The growth of conversational commerce and features like Instagram Shopping presents an opportunity to accelerate business growth via social commerce.

Platforms like Whatsapp, Instagram, and Facebook are especially popular with consumers and businesses, serving as both engagement and product discovery platforms that convert into sales. An efficient UPI payment gateway enables easy integrations across platforms like Whatsapp, Instagram, and Facebook, thus closing the sales loop with a robust payment experience. This feature is fuelling social shopping and, in turn, more sales for businesses. Hence, choose a UPI payment gateway that enables social integrations with ease.

3. Offer the Buy Now, Pay Later option

According to a Buy Now, Pay Later survey, BNPL payments are projected to grow by 89.5% to reach $6.9 billion in India by 2022.

India already has 25–30 million BPNL customers, which are expected to increase to around 90–100 million by 2026. With such a fast-growing customer base, merchants that offer the BNPL option are more likely to be favoured by consumers. Hence, businesses must ensure that their UPI payment gateway service providers offer a seamless BNPL option to support this audience.

This is especially important since BNPL was launched as an innovative alternative to credit cards, which leaves a large number of consumers outside the credit ecosystem. By offering BNPL, businesses are likely to serve newer demographics and be more inclusive businesses.

4. Create custom branded pages for all use-cases

The custom branded feature for payments enables brands to have their logo, band colours, and other branding hallmarks on the payment pages. Customers are also able to view all information against a backdrop of branded pages, which inspires trust. They are more likely to make a payment without any doubts with this tiny nudge. Choose a UPI payment gateway partners that automate custom branded pages and delivers on this promise.

Conclusion

Safe, secure, multi-feature UPI payment gateways are increasingly playing an important role in helping businesses offer a superior payment experience to their consumers. This is one of the final steps in the consumer retail experience, and compromising on it can lead to losses in sales and business.

Plural Gateway offers merchants the opportunity to deliver excellence in their promise to consumers. Our superior UPI payment gateway comes enhanced with multiple features such as the “Buy Now, Pay Later” option, multiple payment avenues, custom branded pages, and easy integrations with key social media and messaging app platforms.

Plural also offers a hassle-free integration experience and round-the-clock tech support. With shopping being a real-time experience, the latter is an important part of the overall package.

Plural by Pine Labs has received an in-principle authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a Payment Aggregator.