UPI states the next era of India’s digital payment landscape. And it introduced the concept of intent flow. With the UPI intent flow, your business will be able to provide a smooth and convenient payment experience through the use of UPI without the need for asking any additional details or opening a different browser window.
In short, the users don’t have to switch between multiple applications to find notifications of payment requests. Instead, the UPI intent flow will help integrate a native experience to promote better conversion rates.
UPI is a well-known mode of payment today, but if your business payment infrastructure isn’t aware of the intent flow, then this article is a complete elaboration on UPI and its potential for businesses through intent flow.
How Does UPI Work for Businesses?
NPCI’s UPI platform is now hitting more than 100 crore transactions daily. The RBI has enabled UPI wallets to process low-value offline transactions. Businesses commonly make use of UPI for collecting payments upon their business sales. Online payments are now permissible as the merchant applications can be linked with the feature for customers to add their VPAs and pay through their dedicated UPI applications.
The payment collections using UPI are done through several methods, which include:
1. Collection of payment through the in-app UPI transactions
The in-app payment collection option will directly integrate the UPI-related bank account details of the customers over the merchant application. Thus, the payment experience will be enhanced.
2. Collection of payment through the UPI link sent to you via SMS or email
Through this method, a UPI payment link will be sent to the registered mobile number or email ID for the customers to redirect to the app and process the payment.
3. Collection of payment through the dynamic QR codes for UPI payments
Under this process of payment collection, the merchants display a dynamic QR code for the customers to scan through their dedicated UPI apps and make the payment.
4. Collection of payment through the UPI Subscription Plans
There’s an option for your business to create a specific subscription plan for the customers and then allow them an auto-debiting feature for the user through a one-time command authentication.
All of these payment collection methods through UPI are evidently popular and are being used on a large scale. But, each of these methods slows down the entire transaction process. The whole ideology of UPI payments was to speed up the monetary transactions between customers and merchants.
Even though customers do not have to enter their card details every time they decide to shop or avail of services online, the speed of these UPI payment collection modes is still not as fast as expected. Hence, the ideology of UPI intent flow was introduced!
What is UPI Intent Flow and How Does it Benefit the Businesses?
When you implement UPI Intent flow onto your application, you can avail yourself of productive benefits such as decreased rate of cart abandonments, a high rate of conversion, and reduced time for payment completion.
Not just your business but your customers will also be availing of some benefits such as keeping you free from the hassle of handling SMS or push notifications, switching between applications for processing the payment and remembering VPAs. All of these flexibilities are what have made UPI intent flow, a successive evolution of the original technology, for businesses to thrive with more sales.
Without the intent flow, when the transaction request is made through the VPA ID to a UPI application or mobile number, the customer will have to move out of the merchant app and access the app notification to process the payment. Thus, it breaks the payment journey for customers, which is one of the many reasons why people abandon the carts mid-way.
Instead, the UPI intent flow integration will ensure that the screen gets stuck on the UPI app’s page. You will get to choose the preferred UPI payment app from the list of options that supports intent flow for your business. Once you do, you will be prompted to enter the PIN and process the payment. When done, you will again be returned to the order page to show you the successful payment message.
Reasons Why Intent Flow is Essential for Businesses that Accept UPI Payments
Payment flow or journey breaks for the customers are just one of the many reasons that act as roadblocks for businesses to collect UPI payments or interrupt their sales journey. Some of those reasons include:
1. Lengthy Collection Flow
The usual UPI collection method or flow is very lengthy, which eventually slows down the transaction speed. There’s a chance you might be losing out on the customers due to this delay in the transaction. Hence, reducing the touch points for UPI payment collection is of utmost importance.
2. Extensive Delays to Manual Errors
There is a possibility that you might have entered the wrong VPA or have made spelling mistakes in it. In the case of the conventional mode of UPI collection, the validation failure will redirect you to start over again! With the intent flow, even though you enter the wrong VPAs, you will get an immediate verification result and a chance to edit the same. Thus, a lot of delays can be minimized due to these manual errors.
3. High Latency
With the increase in the UPI intent flow, the dependence on bank gateways will eventually enhance the latency. It is because the bank APIs take around 30 seconds to respond to the requests. The intent flow has filled out this void and is helping lower the latency and speed up the transaction and sales process for customers.
Industries that are Attaining Productive Benefits by Utilising the UPI Intent Flow
You need to speed up the UPI collection approach from your customers. It works well with all of the industries and businesses that are readily accepting UPI payments. But on the other hand, there are specific industries that gain the maximum weightage out of UPI intent flow. The sectors that will experience the most perks are:
1. eCommerce
The eCommerce businesses often deal with bulk amounts of transactions and checkouts, and the speed of processing the payments is a game changer for this industry. With the UPI intent flow, bulk checkouts can be done very conveniently. The features such as one-click clearance of transactions, pre-populated amounts, and UPI payments are now accessible for your customers to make over the app or website at the ‘Checkout’ page.
2. Logistics & Delivery
The large-volume transactions of the delivery or logistics industry that handles the last-mile delivery or eCommerce delivery services are going to benefit the most from the intent flow. With the lowered chances of payment failures, there is a high chance your business will experience an enhanced conversion rate, which promises an optimal experience for the users.
3. Ed-Tech
The Ed-tech industries are now also leveraging the potential of UPI payments by enabling users to avail the online courses directly through the application. The students can avail of the certification or tuition courses easily by processing faster and uninterrupted payments.
How Can FidyPay Help You Integrate the UPI Intent Flow?
FidyPay integrates an API to your business application to implement the UPI intent flow at the checkout pages. We will help create a custom UPI intent flow API for your dedicated platform and will then integrate it to offer a smooth payment solution to the customers. Upon your request, we will make sure to include the intent flow of almost all the popular UPI apps in India.
Once done, the customers will have the feasibility to choose their preferences upon the UPI application. The payment details will then be pre-populated when someone initiates the UPI mode, and then the transaction will be completed within seconds.
FidyPay encourages businesses of almost all industries that accept UPI payments online to pivot their collection methods through intent flow. It is because, with the thriving digital payment landscape, it is now important for businesses to customize their payment journey.
We have the right tools and expertise to help you with neo-banking platforms, fintech service providers, Non-Banking Financial Institutions, and others to help them set up a seamless and secure payments ecosystem. With our quality UPI intent flow integration, we are extending the scope of availing financial feasibility for almost all businesses.
Parting Words
With this, you are now fully aware of the efficacies associated with UPI intent flow; FidyPay offers you the feasibility of integrating the intent flow in both your Android as well as iOS applications. There is no more need for customers to move from the merchant app to the UPI app or from the SMS box to the UPI app for processing payments.
These are all lengthy procedures you can overcome for your payment collection needs with the integration of UPI intent flow. If you are one among the businesses that have been leveraging the potential of UPI for collecting payments but were deprived of the added simplicity it can offer in that aspect, then now is the time to evolve the same.
Get in touch with FidyPay, and we shall discuss how your business application can help you get more sales, generate more revenue, and earn the loyalty of the customers.
