We all know what a great success UPI is. UPI, and Aadhaar, are two G2C systems of India which have made the so-called developed countries sit up and take notice, not just due to their scale but due to the effective use of tech.
Some friends and I were talking about UPI a couple of days ago, and we were comparing NEFT to UPI. NEFT too allows us to do funds transfer from my bank account to someone else’s bank account. What’s different?
Mobile number
The first difference is that you don’t need to know the recipient’s bank details. Just his mobile number. The recipient has done the hard work of linking her bank account to her mobile number. For me, it’s super easy.
That’s UX, not a new feature.
QR code
Many merchants do not have to display a mobile number for me to pay them — they just display a QR code. Which is linked to a bank account.
For me, this too is UX, not a new feature. Finally, the money still goes from my account to his.
Real-time remittance
This is where the conversation got techie. (You can’t blame us, Remiges is after all the company which builds awesome tech for banking and finance and capital markets institutions 12 hours a day. We drink REST API with cutting chai.)
One of my long-time colleagues got all excited and said “Do you know what NPCI has to do to deliver this oh-so-simple easy intuitive UPI? They have to do real-time transactions from your app to NPCI, then from NPCI to the sending bank, then from NPCI to the recipient bank, then actually debit one, then credit the other, and get acks from everywhere, then send your app the ack. Do you know how complex it is? How much the latency constraints are? NEFT doesn’t have to any of these! They do nothing! They work in batch mode! They claim to take a whole hour for your transaction!”
If you’ve worked with techies, you know well not to argue with an excited senior techie who can see bytes, packets, transactions and latencies more clearly than he sees mere mortal humans. So I nodded, then nodded a few more times, finally perked up the courage to say:
“So what? For me, for the end-user, all this adds up to a fantastic UX change, supported by very cool tech, no doubt. In my eyes, it’s tech in the service of UX.”
Recipient name display
The techie colleague was not done. He pointed out, “See how in UPI, when you select a mobile number to remit to, the app shows you the party’s name? No NEFT screen ever shows you this. In fact, they give you dire warnings saying that if you make a mistake with the account number, they will remit to the wrong account, and the fact that you are also entering the recipient name will not save your money. What a stupid interface!”
I agreed. But being tact personified, I didn’t just say “I agree.” I said, “Absolutely true! So true! This small, thoughtful step improves the UX so much.”
(Did you see what I did? Crafty, clever, me. UX again!)
Bill presentment
We also pay bills through UPI, and my Google Pay displays pending bills from my billers.
This is a feature which I have not seen with NEFT. I can pay bills through NEFT, but I am not seeing any bill presentment facility. This is a feature of UPI, not a UX difference.
In summary
I had written about UX before. Saurabh Karandikar read that article and agreed vigorously, and said something I’ll remember for a long time. He said “I keep telling my students this: UX is empathy codified.” Indeed it is.
When I see what UPI has done for us, I realise the power of UX. UPI is just UX at one level. All the fabulous tech and the changes in RBI regulations are all part of the preparatory work to deliver essentially the same service as NEFT, but with a mind-blowing UX. See that poor vegetable seller at the street corner with one basket of vegetables, sitting on the pavement, patiently waiting for customers. She is illiterate. UPI serves her — she has a QR code.
See that poor vegetable seller at the street corner with one basket of vegetables, sitting on the pavement, patiently waiting for customers. She is illiterate. UPI serves her — she has a QR code.
It makes us humble. It makes us realise that UX is not about pretty screens. It’s about really understanding what the ordinary user needs.
IMHO, any system which is to be used by mere mortals needs to have as its driving philosophy: tech in the service of UX. UPI is an embodiment of this.
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