[BigB]

Voted for Others: BHIM

I prefer using Indian brands. I thus use BHIM UPI and am impressed with its very simple UI and ease of use. All my bills are paid by BHIM apart from making purchases through QR Code.

I have not faced any problems yet in my usage which is very extensive.

[das_ren_auto]

Voted others - Samsung pay and CRED UPI

Originally Posted by three10

1) any news on Apple Pay? Imagine the convinience of saving the card on the device and using the watch for nfc payments
2) I can’t seem to find this NFC based payment option in gpay. Is it android only?

Try Samsung pay once. It supports both MST and NFC.You never have to carry you credit cards again. And it seems Samsung only can support MST machines.

[adwaith]

I've had a Samsung phone from 2017 and ended up using Samsung Pay since I was paranoid about privacy at the time and didn't want to use GPay. My second preference is BHIM, whenever Samsung Pay fails.

[HammerHead]

I use this, I'm sure you all know which one it is. I get emotional when it wishes me luck after every transaction

[Viper21]

I have a separate Paytm payments bank account in which i keep only limited money. <5000 INR. And this is the only account thats linked to all my UPI apps. In case i need to transfer more money, its a two step process. This way according to me i expose only the more controlled bank account to UPI apps and feel safe from any phishing / scamming . Also since i fully regulate the amount of money i have in the paytm payments bank , the financial risk / loss is also quite controlled.

[mayuresh]

Originally Posted by SourPai

UPI may be good for merchants due to low MDR, but not so good for consumers like us. It is extremely low rewarding.

As the system stands today, yes, you should use credit card wherever possible as it gives you credit period + goodies.

However do note the costs involved when an intermediary stands between a payer and a payee (compared to UPI, which is peer to peer). If you see it carefully those costs are passed on to the consumers - although prima facie it may not appear so.

Further, since those who don't use credit cards also pay the same price for an item as those who use it. Hence those who don't use credit card are actually cross-subsidizing the goodies for those who use it. No business model could be unfairer than this where non-users of a product subsidize its users.

Paid credit cards are a fairer model as a beneficiary pays for the benefits, so are models where the MDR is passed on to the specific users of an instrument (card).

This is likely to be an unpopular opinion! But it's unfortunately true.

[whitewing]

Originally Posted by Viper21

I have a separate Paytm payments bank account in which i keep only limited money. <5000 INR. And this is the only account thats linked to all my UPI apps. In case i need to transfer more money, its a two step process. This way according to me i expose only the more controlled bank account to UPI apps and feel safe from any phishing / scamming . Also since i fully regulate the amount of money i have in the paytm payments bank , the financial risk / loss is also quite controlled.

I follow the exact same approach.
Have Paytm bank linked to UPI with limited amount, use it for all UPI payments. Have not enabled UPI for my primary bank accounts.
Never felt the need to switch to another provider since I've not faced any payment issue till date.
In the rare situation I need to make transfers for larger amounts, I transfer the required amount via NEFT to the paytm account.

[driver52001]

Used Google Pay for a long time till I tried PhonePe. Haven't used GPay for a while now. PhonePe seems a lot faster than GPay. PhonePe doesn't need location to be turned on while every time I use GPay I have to turn on location to make a transaction. So one step less with PhonePe (and maybe save a bit of battery as most people simply forget to turn off location). Have never used PayTM because I don't like that Vijay whatever guy. He reminds of Byju's

[yashg]

Paytm is my preferred app, Gpay comes second. Paytm because I also have an account with Paytm payments Bank and I make all small ticket payments from that. I transfer 5k from my main bank account to Paytm bank and then make all small transactions from there this way my main account statement is not cluttered with hundreds of small transactions. I use Gpay occassionally.

[mayuresh]

Originally Posted by huntrz

If your bank is decently tech savvy then I don't see any reason to provide access to a 3rd party to be able to pull money from my account. We can't anticipate how those access can be misused.

Apps are merely a UI that invoke NPCI API. They don't get access to your account or any other data with the bank. Yeah, they do thrive on data to the extent it is visible in the app, such as whom you are paying, your spending patterns, balances etc. which is what keeps them interested. (And so does your bank as well.)

[SourPai]

Originally Posted by mayuresh

As the system stands today, yes, you should use credit card wherever possible as it gives you credit period + goodies.

However do note the costs involved when an intermediary stands between a payer and a payee (compared to UPI, which is peer to peer). If you see it carefully those costs are passed on to the consumers - although prima facie it may not appear so.

Further, since those who don't use credit cards also pay the same price for an item as those who use it. Hence those who don't use credit card are actually cross-subsidizing the goodies for those who use it. No business model could be unfairer than this where non-users of a product subsidize its users.

Paid credit cards are a fairer model as a beneficiary pays for the benefits, so are models where the MDR is passed on to the specific users of an instrument (card).

This is likely to be an unpopular opinion! But it's unfortunately true.

Well.. there is another angle to this argument. It is not as simple as saying that the cross subsidisation happens.

Accepting cards and UPI is completely a merchant's decision. He can only allow UPI and not cards (many small business do that). Or he can choose to offer 1.5% discount (or MDR equivalent) if someone uses UPI. Yet many medium to large sized merchants do not do that and happily take up MDR. Why? It is because, they see more business potential on accepting card payments. Increase in business can potentially offset the MDR far and beyond, giving them economies of scale and potentially higher absolute profits.

In this case, other argument is that since merchant is able to grow his business, he can offer products at competitive price, thereby reverse offsetting the increased cost due to MDR. (Ofcourse this is assuming all other parameters about increasing business are constant)

[mayuresh]

Originally Posted by SourPai

Why? It is because, they see more business potential on accepting card payments.

Yes, that's because that's how the system has evolved to be - in the pre-peer-to-peer-payment era. Now that peer-to-peer methods exist, at least the intermediary costs should be made explicit. (One can draw an analogy with what MF industry did in 2013 by separating regular and direct funds.)

Despite my views in the last post, I myself prefer credit card payments. Why - just because that's a beneficial mode to me. Hence I like a merchant to support credit cards. Hence a merchant does. And the cycle continues...

But that doesn't make it a fair model.

Visas and Masters of the world earn millions and where do they come from? And when a card user and a card non-user pays equal amount when only the card-user gets the goodies, what is an apt word for this phenomenon?

[TallBoy]

I use PhonePe most of the time.

Advantages being:
1. High success rate
2. Doesn't need location access
3. Generally fast response
4. Intuitive UI and features like additional VPAs etc.

Like WhatsApp pay too but has too few users even now.

When I think of UPI and Aadhaar, I feel proud of the India Stack, and no better day than Republic Day to once again thank all the those who work(ed) in developing the ecosystem.

[tjsi]

Samsung pay all the way. Easy and convenient to pull up from the lock screen or watch, tap on the machine and go.
Upgrading to Samsung was a game changer. My Note 8 even had MST support so it would even work in traditional non NFC terminals, my S22U doesn't have that.

The reward points are useful for getting discounts at the samsung store online and offline. Collecting some in case they update their Buds Live lineup

[rst89]

1st Option: Phone pe, reliable and very less failures.

Backup app: GPay linked to some other bank account.

I used BHIM from past 4 years but ditched it for Phone Pe as BHIM has been left as orphan app by NPCI. Highly unstable, sometimes scanning QR code itself doesn't work. Payments are slow.

Compared to BHIM, phonepe and GPay, both are super fast. It's sad I had to sell data to private players when BHIM should have worked as per expectation.