UPI Mandate and Autopay: Requirements from a BA Perspective

A UPI mandate is a standing instruction registered on the UPI platform that authorises a merchant to collect payments from a customer bank account through UPI, up to a defined maximum amount and within a defined period. The customer creates the mandate by approving it in the UPI app with a UPI PIN, and the mandate is stored by NPCI and linked to the customer bank account and the merchant. The merchant can then present collections against the mandate on the agreed dates, and the customer bank debits the account automatically, subject to the mandate limits. A BA must document the mandate fields, the merchant name, the maximum amount per debit, the frequency, the start date, the end date, the purpose, and the unique mandate reference that appears on the customer bank statement. The collect flow and the pay flow are two different ways a UPI mandate can be used, and the BA must not confuse them. In a collect flow the merchant initiates the collection, for example a mutual fund house collecting a monthly SIP of 5,000 rupees, and the customer does not need to act on the debit date. In a pay flow the customer initiates the payment, for example by tapping pay on a subscription renewal screen, and the mandate is used to authorise the payment without re-entering the full details. The system must record which flow was used for each transaction, because the dispute handling differs, a collect flow dispute is about whether the merchant was authorised to collect, while a pay flow dispute is about whether the customer intended that specific payment. The requirements should state the notification that the customer receives before and after each collection. Mandate creation is a multi step journey that must be designed with clear confirmations at each stage. The merchant sends a mandate request with the amount, frequency and validity, the customer receives it in the UPI app, reviews the details, and approves it by entering the UPI PIN. The UPI app sends the approval to the customer bank through the NPCI switch, the bank validates the account and registers the mandate, and the merchant receives a confirmation with the mandate reference. If the customer declines, the merchant must receive a clear rejection and must not retry the mandate request repeatedly. The BA should specify the expiry time for a pending mandate request, typically 24 hours, and the customer message when a mandate request is received from an unknown merchant. Mandate execution is the debit itself, and it must respect the limits that protect the customer. Each execution must check that the mandate is active, that the amount does not exceed the maximum, that the date is within the validity period, and that the total of all executions does not exceed any cumulative limit. If any check fails, the execution must be rejected before the account is debited, and the merchant must receive a reason code. For higher value mandates, the regulator requires an additional customer approval before execution, so the BA must capture the threshold for pre-debit notification and the timing, often 24 hours before the debit. A real example is a streaming subscription of 649 rupees per month. The customer receives a notification a day before the debit, and can cancel the mandate from the UPI app if the subscription is no longer wanted. Revocation is the customer right to cancel a mandate at any time, and it must work instantly from the UPI app and from the bank channel. When the customer revokes a mandate, the UPI system marks it as revoked, informs the merchant, and blocks any future execution, even if the merchant presents a collection on the same day. The merchant must stop presenting collections immediately and must inform the customer of any pending service impact, such as a subscription that will lapse. The BA must specify the revocation flow, the confirmation message, the merchant notification, and the handling of a collection that was already in flight when the revocation happened. The test cases should include revocation before the first debit, revocation between debits, and a merchant presentation after revocation that must be rejected by the system.