20 million UPI Autopay mandates revoked every month
📉 20 million #UPI #Autopay mandates get revoked every month, mostly due to low customer balances!
UPI Autopay has quietly become the default for #RecurringPayments from OTT subscriptions, news apps, gym memberships, you name it.
Why #merchants love it:
- Almost everyone uses UPI → instant familiarity
- Quick to set up, lower costs than cards
- No 2FA for mandates under â‚ą2,000
- Works seamlessly in the background
A perfect recipe for sticky revenues.
But here’s the flip side 👇
Setting up is effortless. Finding & #cancelling is not.
- Apps often tuck the “cancel” button deep inside menus.
- Many free trials (â‚ą1 for the first month) silently turn into recurring payments!
- Low-income and less tech-savvy users often discover deductions only after balances run low.
Now, compare this to #card auto-debits:
A few years back, customer backlash forced #RBI to step in. Today, banks must send pre-debit alerts, allow one-click cancellations, and obtain explicit re-approval for changes. That regulatory push restored balance.
With UPI Autopay, the tech rails are robust, and cancellations are possible directly from the UPI app, but poor awareness and merchant-driven design keep consumers at a disadvantage.
What could help?
- RBI mandating a “single-click cancel” at the system level (not just buried in apps).
- Clear distinction between one-time offers vs recurring subscriptions at the checkout page.
- Periodic reminders to users about active mandates.
Until then, expect revocations to keep rising as UPI scales and users continue to feel trapped in subscriptions they never meant to sign up for.
Have you ever faced difficulty canceling an autopay mandate on UPI or cards? How did you deal with it?