phonepe problem - txn completed after 4 days

[ltf4ever]

I used to face this issue with gpay earlier so I had shifted to phonepe, but after using it for 2 years, now I faced this issue on phonepe too:

I paid uber driver via phonepe UPI, and I got an sms saying amount debited from my bank.
but in phonepe, the status showed that it is processing, receiver bank has received the funds and it will take 2 days to complete.

the driver started asking for cash, and luckily I had sufficient cash on me.

4 days later, I get success message from phonepe. I had to call the driver again to refund me the money and luckily he did return it to me.

need suggestions from community members to avoid such situations.

would upi lite payments eliminate this problem?
and which are the apps that are better than phonepe for UPI success rate? I am not concerned about rewards for UPI txn, just success rate.

 

[provost]

So if you go through the explanation above, each of the parties can do reconciliation of the payment by utilising NPCI's API. In this case, the debit happened and your bank sent the callback to NPCI. But the reciever's bank didn't give a callback to NPCI so NPCI is at a loss to understand whether the money was credited to receiver's bank account by their bank or not. So it marks these transactions as pending. On contrary, if there are any issues at sender's bank, NPCI just marks these txns as failed since your bank can always refund you.

When PhonePe does reconciliation, it keeps on getting the status as pending. Why it says 48 hrs in message because as per the process, the bank get a file of all the transactions (credits+debits) at a 3 hr interval from NPCI. They have to confirm status of any pending txns by T+1, so that makes it a maximum of 48 hrs. However, some co-operative and small banks do not have in-house technology teams and outsource to third party vendors which leads to the problem where they are unable to debug any such issues quickly which leads to txns often going into pending for longer than 48 hrs.

At the end of the day, only the reciever's bank can confirm whether they have credited the money. They have to update the status for PhonePe or any other to show it to you.

thanks for the detailed mechanism.
so mine was a P2P txn where the receiver was the driver (not uber).
see the screenshot attached. as soon as I entered the UPI pin, I got the message saying receiver's bank has received the payment, but the transaction was pending and will be updated in 48 hours. I can't understand what's happening here. if phonepe tells me that the receiver bank has received the money, why can't it tell me that the transaction is success (and also send the driver's bank should send the driver the credit sms)?

 

[ltf4ever]

So if you go through the explanation above, each of the parties can do reconciliation of the payment by utilising NPCI's API. In this case, the debit happened and your bank sent the callback to NPCI. But the reciever's bank didn't give a callback to NPCI so NPCI is at a loss to understand whether the money was credited to receiver's bank account by their bank or not. So it marks these transactions as pending. On contrary, if there are any issues at sender's bank, NPCI just marks these txns as failed since your bank can always refund you.

When PhonePe does reconciliation, it keeps on getting the status as pending. Why it says 48 hrs in message because as per the process, the bank get a file of all the transactions (credits+debits) at a 3 hr interval from NPCI. They have to confirm status of any pending txns by T+1, so that makes it a maximum of 48 hrs. However, some co-operative and small banks do not have in-house technology teams and outsource to third party vendors which leads to the problem where they are unable to debug any such issues quickly which leads to txns often going into pending for longer than 48 hrs.

At the end of the day, only the reciever's bank can confirm whether they have credited the money. They have to update the status for PhonePe or any other to show it to you.

so from what I understand, instead of the message saying 'money has reached the receiver's Bank' , it should have said 'money is successfully sent from your bank'.
strange.
is it possible to implement the technology that credit cards use? I don't see any such cases happening when credit cards(or even debit cards) are used online or swiped on machines.

48hours is ridiculous and a major deterrent for me from using UPI for large P2P transactions with unknown receivers.

 

[provost]

so from what I understand, instead of the message saying 'money has reached the receiver's Bank' , it should have said 'money is successfully sent from your bank'.
strange.
is it possible to implement the technology that credit cards use? I don't see any such cases happening when credit cards(or even debit cards) are used online or swiped on machines.

48hours is ridiculous and a major deterrent for me from using UPI for large P2P transactions with unknown receivers.

So bank's CBS (core banking system) powers UPI txns which was never meant to handle the scale of UPI payments. And with no MDR and how commercials and incentives from MeitY work, banks lose money on every payment. Hence, there is little incentive to scale their systems.

On cards side, bank's CMS (credit management system) is designed to handle much higher scale and there are clear MDR incentives to ensure high uptime. However, even these systems are susceptible to failure, evident from how RBI penalized HDFC Bank not so long ago.

Also, another reason why you don't see pendency with CC txns is that they are merchant payments. Merchant acquirer has a control over money flow and can refund you. It's exactly the same case with UPI too.

But frankly, you don't have many choices for P2P payments except UPI, NEFT, IMPS. And only two of these are realtime. CC payments cannot be allowed for P2P.

 

[ltf4ever]

So bank's CBS (core banking system) powers UPI txns which was never meant to handle the scale of UPI payments. And with no MDR and how commercials and incentives from MeitY work, banks lose money on every payment. Hence, there is little incentive to scale their systems.

On cards side, bank's CMS (credit management system) is designed to handle much higher scale and there are clear MDR incentives to ensure high uptime. However, even these systems are susceptible to failure, evident from how RBI penalized HDFC Bank not so long ago.

Also, another reason why you don't see pendency with CC txns is that they are merchant payments. Merchant acquirer has a control over money flow and can refund you. It's exactly the same case with UPI too.

But frankly, you don't have many choices for P2P payments except UPI, NEFT, IMPS. And only two of these are realtime. CC payments cannot be allowed for P2P.

thanks @provost for taking the time to clarify in such a detail. it really helps the community a lot.

 

[starstruck]

I used to face this issue with gpay earlier so I had shifted to phonepe, but after using it for 2 years, now I faced this issue on phonepe too:

I paid uber driver via phonepe UPI, and I got an sms saying amount debited from my bank.
but in phonepe, the status showed that it is processing, receiver bank has received the funds and it will take 2 days to complete.

the driver started asking for cash, and luckily I had sufficient cash on me.

4 days later, I get success message from phonepe. I had to call the driver again to refund me the money and luckily he did return it to me.

need suggestions from community members to avoid such situations.

would upi lite payments eliminate this problem?
and which are the apps that are better than phonepe for UPI success rate? I am not concerned about rewards for UPI txn, just success rate.

I used to face this issue with gpay earlier so I had shifted to phonepe, but after using it for 2 years, now I faced this issue on phonepe too:

I paid uber driver via phonepe UPI, and I got an sms saying amount debited from my bank.
but in phonepe, the status showed that it is processing, receiver bank has received the funds and it will take 2 days to complete.

the driver started asking for cash, and luckily I had sufficient cash on me.

4 days later, I get success message from phonepe. I had to call the driver again to refund me the money and luckily he did return it to me.

need suggestions from community members to avoid such situations.

would upi lite payments eliminate this problem?
and which are the apps that are better than phonepe for UPI success rate? I am not concerned about rewards for UPI txn, just success rate.

Same post repeat. First time seeing this. Two accounts by same person or mistake while replying?

 

[ltf4ever]

Same post repeat. First time seeing this. Two accounts by same person or mistake while replying?

moreover, it is the exact same original question that I had posted. and I was thinking "who's this guy who also had the same experience" till I read half of the post 😅

 

[starstruck]

moreover, it is the exact same original question that I had posted. and I was thinking "who's this guy who also had the same experience" till I read half of the post 😅

You did not make 3 accounts right? 😂

 

[starstruck]

moreover, it is the exact same original question that I had posted. and I was thinking "who's this guy who also had the same experience" till I read half of the post 😅

Looks like a true Neo and Buzz moment 🤭

 

[Pavan]

I was trying to transfer 8K and it got stuck neither my account was credited and still says processing
do i need to wait for 2 days now
@VISHESH_BANSAL @S S V @Walter White Please can you suggest

 

[pothi]

NPCI has introduced some limits on P2PM transactions.

Implementation of maximum UPI inward credit limits for P2PM merchants

...

taxguru.in

It means more merchants will move from P2PM to P2M. Good for consumers as this reduces the failures.

P2P transactions are still a concern for failures and delays.