How Secure Is UPI?

Almost six years after the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) launched Unified Payment Interface (UPI), transactions worth Rs 80 trillion were processed under it in financial year 2022. At the time of the launch, NPCI’s challenge was to make a product that was secure as well as more convenient than the tools that needed two-factor authentication. Here’s a look at what makes UPI fast and secure. Consumer Side Layers The consumer side actually uses three authentication factors, two of which have to be done only once. “The first factor is device binding. The second is KYC verification by sending an SMS to the server (which verifies the mobile number as the one attached to your bank account). The third is the UPI PIN,” says Saket Modi, co-founder and CEO of Safe Security, a digital business risk quantification company. The user is ‘bound’ to...