November 24, 2025 · 9 mins read
Santosh Kumar
United Payment Interface or UPI is a real-time, fast, and instant payment system in India. UPI enables inter-bank transfers and payments from different banks through one mobile application, without sharing any bank details or adding a beneficiary. UPI has transformed India’s digital payment landscape, making it secure and extremely convenient.
In UPI, people are more familiar with UPI push payments, where a user actively pays a merchant or an Individual. Whereas UPI Collect is a UPI Pull system, which is also very important, but much less understood and discussed.
UPI Collect is a feature that allows businesses or even individuals to send payment requests to another person’s UPI ID. The receiver can accept or decline it. It can streamline many transactions together, like a company collecting money from a customer or people splitting bills.
UPI Collect is a feature within the UPI framework that allows a merchant, service provider, or an individual person to send a payment request to another person’s UPI ID. The receiver gets a notification in their UPI app that they can use to accept or reject the payment request. UPI Collect is not like UPI Puh. In UPI, the person paying initiates the transaction. The UPI is typically good for bill or rent payments, any fees, or some kind of merchant payments.
There are five steps of the UPI collection to work on.
A collect request is generated: An individual or a business requests the money amount by entering the recipient’s UPI ID. Many apps can generate this automatically for a business and/ or individual.
Notification received by the recipient: Once the request is generated, the UPI app creates a “payment request” alert for the consumer with the merchant’s name, the amount of money to be paid, the last date of the payment, and the purpose of the payment.
Approval by user: After the notification is received, the user uses a UPI PIN to approve the pay request. The PIN is for authentication.
Transfer of funds: After the user accepts and enters the money to be paid, the user’s bank account transfers the money to the merchant’s account immediately in real-time.
Status of payment: After the payment, the receiver gets the status of the payment, whether it is a success or a failure.
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UPI Collect is very useful because it reduces the manual steps and improves accuracy. It is perfect for automatic, scheduled, and recurring payments started by merchants. This helps lenders, small merchants, and various service providers to get their payments without hassle and without dependence on credit or debit cards.
Some main importance is listed below:
1: Automated billing is enabled for the merchant.
2: Reduces or eliminates errors, such as the amount of money.
3: Simple checkout process, and it works seamlessly.
4: A predictable flow of payment for the businesses
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To directly compare, UPI Push, the payer initiates the payment; they can pay any amount of money via regular payment. Automatic pay does not necessarily work well.
Whereas, for UPI Collect, it is initiated by a merchant. They can initiate payment receiving requests for due bills and subscriptions, and merchant checkouts. The user (who will do the payment) approves the request. Works well for automatic payments.
1: Bill payments for utilities, Such as water providers, LPG services, Electricity companies, or boards, can use UPI Collect to get monthly bills from consumers.
2: E-commerce: Website can also use their UPI ID and send a collect request to the buyer.
3: EMI for loans: Certain money lending companies can also use UPI collect for EMI payment requests from the consumer. This can even work for auto-debits.
4: Small merchants, such as small shopkeepers and vendors, can ask for their money from their consumers as well via UPI Collect.
5: Fees: Schools, colleges, universities, and even coaching centers can request payments through UPI Collect.
6: Rents: Landlords can ask for money through UPI Collect as well.
7: Subscriptions: Most apps, including OTTs, can ask for payments using UPI Collect.
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1: UPI Collect settles the payment instantly, as it’s a real-time payment, like all other UPI transactions.
2: Only a UPI ID is needed; no card or bank details are needed.
3: The receiver requests the payment, not the payer. This keeps the billing as a regular workflow.
4: The transaction is secured through UPI PIN
5: The requests have an expiry and send notifications.
6: Works across all UPI apps such as Gpay, PhonePe, Paytm, and even with bank apps
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1: Simple and convenient to use. Does not need much manual input.
2: As the amount of money is added by the service provider or the merchant, who is the requester, any overpayments or underpayments are not possible.
3: Easy for merchants as well, as the payment is real-time and instant.
4: Every transaction can be tracked, with all details and a reference number.
5: Users have control over the payment; it’s not auto-deducted but must be approved by the payer.
6: Easy to use for loan apps, subscription-based apps, and many more service providers.
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UPI Collect has several layers of security measures:
1: Two-factor authentication: This includes UPI PIN and device binding.
2: UPI Collect is enabled with merchant verification.
3: The payment link is valid only for a short time, hence fraudulent attempts are low.
4: The merchant cannot store any bank information or PIN of the payer.
5: Unless the payer approves, no auto-deduction from the account by the merchant.
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UPI Collect has a lot of advantages, but there are some limitations as well.
1: The user will have to be active online and be able to respond. If the user does not respond, the transaction will fail.
2: If the UPI ID is wrong, the money request cannot be paid.
3: Not suitable for automated recurring bills.
4: Sometimes the amount requested is restricted by the payer’s bank.
Even with all these disadvantages, UPI Collect still works as a very powerful, semi-automated payment initiated by the merchant.
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Credit cards such as ZET credit cards have become an interesting intersection between UPI and credit cards.
What is the ZET Credit card? ZET is a financial platform that provides services to some banks, such as SBM and DCB, to provide services for consumers. These are typically fixed deposit-backed credit cards. These ZET credit cards have some features, such as:
1: Management based on an App, hence digital.
2: A virtual credit card that is issued instantly.
3: Rewards for online spending.
4: Helps with bill splitting.
5: Helps with expense tracking
6: Easy repayments
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Many ZET credit cards are now UPI-based and use features such as UPI push (via UPI ID or QR code) and UPI Collect (where merchants request money). Traditional credit cards typically use bank payment systems such as NEFT. Whereas UPI has some easier systems for credit cards compared to bank systems.
1: User receives a payment request from ZET, initiated by an approved merchant.
2: The request shows up with the amount to the payer.
3: The user approves the UPI payment request and pays.
4: Payment goes to the credit card account.
There are multiple reasons why the UPI Collect can be useful for merchants and businesses.
1: Make sure the payment is on time from the payer
2: Reduces payment frictions
3: No requirement for any physical payment machines
4: As the amount of payment is pre-specified, the customer does not have to worry about typing and manual work, and the process becomes easy for the customer as well.
5: As the payments are fast and instant, the settlement is real-time.
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Not necessarily. Regular UPI payments are called UPI push, initiated by the payer. But UPI Collect is a pull method, as the merchant or the business sends the payment request to the user. The user approves or declines the payment.
No bank details are required for UPI Collect; only the UPI ID is required. Neither the payer nor the requestor may share the bank information.
Yes. Every payment request has an expiry date and time. If the user does not act on it within that time, the payment request becomes invalid automatically.
Yes. There are many ZET-based credit cards that use UPI Collect.
Yes. UPI Collect uses several security measures such as UPI PIN, merchant verification, device binding, and time-based money requests. Hence, it is completely safe.
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