Not interested on flamewars here. Reading this thread it looks like merits of system is upon peoples arbitrary metrics based on varying perspectives. So a constructive discussion is not going to happen.
So until there is some standardised comparison probably making any statements about merits or demerits, including mine are just opinions without facts.
However, I've spent a lot of time studying the payments space (7+ years now!) and I'll quickly give you 3 reasons why UPI is "better" than Interrac for example :
1) Better User Experience
Systems like Interrac enable instant bank to bank transfers. However, they don't allow for third party applications to initiate payment requests / view balances. Customers are restricted to choosing a bank and sticking with the user experience defined by the bankers.
UPI , on the other hand, mandates banks to accept and honor payment requests generated from "Third-party payment application providers (TPAPs)"
This allows for a much larger variety of payment experiences to be designed, which can be "fit on top" of the existing banking layer.
PSD2 regulations, in Europe tried to achieve this effect, however most banks ended up implementing a custom version of the protocol instead of adoption a common standard.
2) Lower costs
Adoption of the UPI payments system has massively reduced the cost of sending money anywhere across India.
For Indian banks, the cost of sending money via UPI is wayy less than the "Gas fees" required to facilitate crypto transactions or the fees charged by VISA/MC networks to facilitate transactions.
Similarly, costs for a merchant to accept UPI payments are much lesser than accepting any other form of digital payment today (in India and maybe the world).
3) Federated Architecture
From Day-1, the UPI ecosystem has been design to support multiple switch providers, payment institutions and local regulations.
If countries like France, adopt UPI, they won't have to depend on centralized servers hosted in India to run their payments technology.
All their data can be hosted in servers within the country and the UPI instance facilitating French transactions can be tailored to honor local regulations and limits.
This flexibility is not as easy to implement with older payment systems (like VISA/MC).
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Much of this can also be attributed to the fact that the other payment systems were developed 15+ years ago.
The recently launched, FedNow system adopts a similar approach to UPI. Will be interesting to see how it evolves
I would love to see similar public-private consortium systems in rest of the west like Germany, Spain, France and Australia etc. Until then I’ll consider UPI to be superior to those in the west.
I think there is a standard, so as long your bank’s app supports it and more importantly the merchant actually provides a QR code to scan (which is unlikely).
Then again, I don’t see much need for that when I can just NFC pretty much everywhere (of course the merchant still ends up paying up to 1% on every transaction)
Tapping my phone on an NFC terminal seems much easier and more straightforward than having to scan a QR or install a third party app and having to figure out how to link it with my bank account. There is just probably not a lot of demand for a system like this in much of the west (in cases where you can’t use a card there is always SEPA instant payments)
The QR code has been a far more robust system for the Indian ecosystem which is predominantly filled with low-cost phones of widely different operating systems. A QR code also behaves as a readily identifiable logo of payment and further works from a distance. If anything I prefer the deliberateness of scanning a QR code, clearly similar to half a billion people at the least.
I’ve used both and I prefer NFC over UPI. I just need credit card and phone that supports NFC. No need of phone number, deal with entering pin, scanning QR code, linking account during setup, etc. Biggest plus point with linking credit card is fraud protection.
In US NFC is best and seamless since most people have high end phones. In India maybe UPI with QR code is better solution since you only need phone with a camera.
Depends on what you mean. Instant transfers up to €100k work in Europe's SEPA (and you can indeed use a QR to encode the transfer information with most bank apps, I think). And there is of course the usual contact-less payment stuff at merchants.
That's still not as easy as app payments. There are a number of systems like BLIK in Poland where you have a lower max payment amount, but you just give somebody a temporary 6 digit number and approve the amount they withdraw, that's it. For trusted payment channels you just approve. If you initiate the payment, just give phone number of recipient.
Agreed, but I think for places with a mature payments and debit infrastructure there isn't that much additional business and I suspect most banks' apps will just incorporate that like they do with NFC payments.
Most growth in payments is either new markets or markets that grow a lot, but not completion of rather mature markets (and additional services).
When you compare UPI to western instant payment systems, the most important metrics to look at are consumer choice (banks and experience apps), cost of acceptance, settlement speed and fraud/clawback rates. UPI has broadest interop based consumer choice, free to consumers and lowest cost overall, highest volume of transactions, has fastest settlement and extremely minimal fraud. It is also most inclusive – it works with smartphones, feature phones and soon with only voice calls. It also works offline. And it works for everything from buying a cup of coffee to sending money to your grandma to doing investments in mutual funds and stocks and making large purchases like buying a car.
Just remember that all else being equal, UPI is still a far more impressive system. Here’s the reasons:
1. A 100x higher volume on a normal day.
2. A highly effective and equitable system that somehow managed to succeed in one of the most corrupt and beauracratic nations.
3. The majority of its users can barely read, if at all. Not to mention all the languages involved.
UPI is impressive because it actually made a difference in the lives of the poor. Probably the first piece of internet technology to have a measurable effect on the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
So yeah the case sounds rested in my perspective.
EDIT: also sounds like Swish charges a fee to the banks? Sounds a bit outrageous for a payment system trying to be the best in the world to charge a fee.
> EDIT: also sounds like Swish charges a fee to the banks? Sounds a bit outrageous for a payment system trying to be the best in the world to charge a fee.
FWIW, NPCI charges all banks for UPI too. They’ve been eating most of those costs because the government didn’t allow them to charge (now those charges are slowly coming in). Banks haven’t been happy with the zero MDR regime for UPI.
Doesn’t apply for transactions less than ₹2000 ($24 usd). Might sound like a small amount but most Indian transactions won’t cross that. And the fee doesn’t apply to p2p anyway.
Well volume wasn't the question here (but yes, it's hard to beat anything Chinese or Indian w/o being global). As for literacy most illiterates should be able to use Swish.
Nr 2 though is something that I think might be a reverse though, looking globally mobile payments seems to have been a hit in markets with less well functioning traditional money and credit/debit card markets.
In Sweden cards's (most often debit) with tap-to-pay still rules for most b2c cases like established restaurants, stores and anything with slightly higher value. Swish was mostly started out to facilitate non-commercial person-to-person cases but has now displaced most lower value cash usage (person to person, small vendors, temporary venues).
I frankly don't even know if I have physical money in my wallet anymore since.. well I've not used physical money in a couple of years now iirc.
How does UPI handle payment disputes? My impression is that the direct payment systems do not have chargebacks and are risky for anything that isn't immediate. What do you do if store won't give you return/refund for something broken? What do you if online store never ships? What if food stall doesn't give you your food?
With credit card, it isn't my money for a month until I have to make the payment. If there is a problem, I can chargeback. The possibility of chargeback makes the vendor's support more helpful
In this regard a UPI transaction is the same as a cash transaction. AFAICT it does not handle payment disputes. You can use a credit card if it provides protection against this but now you need to be sure the credit card company is not scamming you (say by charging you bogus fees). As far as I am concerned using a credit card changes nothing when it comes to fraud protection.
That's because you are used to and expect card frauds. In UPI, the only way money leaves your bank is if you enter your PIN. Even standing instructions (called payment mandates) are required to notify you before they execute and you can stop/cancel it at anytime. (like Apple App Store subscriptions, but for everything!).
What happens when you buy or order something online and it doesn’t come, is broken, they won’t take it back, or a myriad of other situations? That’s fraud.
Withdrawing money from a credit card is taking on debt. Credit and debt are related concepts. Ask yourself this will you have to eventually pay interest on the borrowed money or not?
You can have other (non credit, say savings) bank accounts for security too. It's just as easy (or easier) as getting a credit card here (in India).
> Ask yourself this will you have to eventually pay interest on the borrowed money or not?
No, because after a month, there will be an automatic payment from my bank for the balance. In that time, the bank is giving me their money and they’re on the hook for any fraud.
You are taking debt whenever you use credit card. If you miss/forget payment, some tech fault or sometimes just because you can be charged hefty interest or charges.
You can keep a separate account for your daily transactions.
Not sure it qualifies as debt. It's just an agreement with your bank to give them that money in a few weeks / days. And if you commit to spending some small amount per year with your card (usually something like $1500), the bank will offer you some nice perks on their products that you don't get by using other payment methods. If you use something like UPI and you are making some kind of deal with your bank, you are basically losing money.
Credit card annual interest rates can be as high as (or even higher than) 50%. This is not trivial, it can (and does) ruin lives. It is a type of debt (though conditional).
I don't know about other areas, but in the West the overlap between credit card users and people who can get a decent loan at a <10% interest rate is very high. Which is why for most credit card users, credit is a no go if they are not paying it back quickly. UPI counterpart's use case is to send a bit of money to your friend when you share a meal etc.
You have to remember to pay back your credit card debt before the clock runs out. Once you make a UPI payment the transaction ends there (because the money is debited from your bank account and you are not taking on a conditional loan). You don't have to remember to pay the UPI company anything after the fact. I hope this explains how UPI is different from credit cards.
> You have to remember to pay back your credit card debt before the clock runs out
In my experience paying with credit is a fire and forget action, since the money is debited automatically at the end of the month, with no interest. The UX is great, since it only takes a card swipe [as long as I have the funds to pay it back and I'm within my credit limit].
In an scenario where you are not debited right away, I agree completely. But I would only expect that to happen by accident or if the user lacks the financial literacy to understand there are better ways to buy whatever they want. I may be missing some financial corner cases.
I don’t remember when was the last time I’ve paid my credit card, I’ve set it on auto pay. Plus I accumulate enough points at the end of the year for one way trip to India.
> UPI is directly connected to your bank account. It does not go through VISA, Mastercard or whatever.
This is technically incorrect. UPI is connected to NPCI, which runs the platform and charges the participating banks for this service. Same for RuPay cards by NPCI.
I’ve used credit card for more than 10 years and I’ve never paid any interest in those 10 years. If you pay your bill in full every month then there’s no interest charged.
I was surprised by this statement as well. I think the author wanted to paint a picture how miserable things are. Things definitely are difficult for them financially.
The prices stated however is bit too over exaggerated. A dinner that starts at $47 in India is something would have made me think 10 times before going for it. You can have a really good dinner for two at 10$ at a nice restaurant in India.
A dinner at an expensive hotel in Mumbai, an expensive city cost me 5k. I really couldn't imagine paying more than that. The author was exaggerating for effect, claiming 8k was typical. It's much more likely to be 1-1.5k.
The author's revenge seems to be against his users who opted to used Sign In with Apple. Since they will be the one suffering because they trusted to use the particular app.
I can find merit in complaining about apple's restriction in accessing payments. But SignIn with Apple, as a user I will always opt for that given my email won't be available with a third party forever for them to spam or sell.
I have integrated SignIn with Apple both in an app and backend. I never felt it was particularly difficult or under-documented.
Apple forced Groups to choose between having AppleID, or losing Sign in with Google/FB. That would have been equally bad for existing users who had chosen Google/FB before Apple ID was even a thing. Perhaps Groups would have happily adopted Apple ID if it hadn't been forced on it
At the end of the day Groups is a passion project. So it can be used to contribute to a world where developers aren't taken for granted
Apple ID was buggy as hell when it first came out.
Apple users will have to understand that Apple's policies can have an impact in what they get from developers. Apple only cares about $ and PR, wish it weren't this way
From your post I get that you don’t particularly care about the users who use you it app as you are not offering any way to transition users.
I think apple cares about their users and platform, they just care about your passion project and I can understand how that triggers you. But the users belong to the apple ecosystem. You are essentially a guest there and more importantly the user has a choice to privacy. Most of my friends buy iPhone because of ApplePay, Sign in, and now throwaway emails. Apple just caters to them and forces all developers to respect that.
As an engineer I never experienced any issues when integrating with Sign in. I’ve used it in 3 apps already in the past 2 years. There was also a very long grace period.
I do care about my users. That's pretty much all I think of all day. Send me a support request? You will have my undivided attention, for free!
But please tell me, how else can I push back on Apple's bad behavior? In war, there are collateral victims. And I, a dude who's almost a nobody, is willing to take on Apple by any means necessary when they do this kind of stuff
Respect is earned, and it is high time Apple learns to respect developers. We should all be doing this kind of thing. I'd go as far as supporting a general app strike where services become unavailable. That's pretty much how workers have gained any rights and we desperately need rights
If you think that random deflection and taunting is going to distract me, or anyone else here, from the fact that you failed to support your argument, you are mistaken.
You have to clear your mind, the don't care about you, they care about your money only. This is why they want you to be captive but they pretend that it is for your own good. And you buy it...
From what I've seen and experienced that is not true. Apple support is great and help me always, Apple store is great and I always get treated nicely. So I guess they care about me and my experience which translates into the platform they have built for ME - the user. I doubt they built a platform for the sake of building something.
As for Apple owning the user - elaborate pls. I don't see how they try to even own me. I made an educated decision to use that software and hardware BECAUSE of things like ApplePay, SignIn, App Store, etc.
More like a prisoner, rather. As an Apple user, I would like to be treated as the owner of a device I have paid for - not like a "guest" or as a "prisoner".
A trillion dollar publicly traded company sure care about money and PR.
I understand being a developer who does a passion project or an app. But I can't buy into, Apple forcing any developer to make a decision in a very short term.
Almost all new guidelines comes with a 3 months interval before being enforced. And most times the deadlines get extended https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=03262020b
Apple waits a year or more before removing the Apps that don't follow a newly enforced guideline. The restriction is a problem with app submissions that comes in after a deadline
I am fucking happy that apple didn't allow you to force the choice between Google/Facebook or annoying account creating down the throats of your users.
That's exactly the reason I pay more for apple hardware: UX consistency.
If I didn't want it, I would be saving money using android and windows for equivalent hardware.
I agree that the preview of Xcode build looks it is very tightly integrated with Xcode
>Xcode Cloud requires you to push your repository to their servers, and you have to configure the "Workflows" via their desktop application.
The code still lives with your preferred Git hosting provider. Xcode Cloud copies/clones the code just like any conventional CI. Once the build is done, Apple claims to remote/delete any copy of it.
> No configuration as code, no shell scripts you can run from your existing CI/CD, no ability to trigger a build remotely or push code to them on demand. You can't even synchronously wait on a build to finish - you have to set up a web server and listen for a webhook! You can't integrate it with your existing CI/CD - whether that's GitHub Actions, GitLab pipelines, etc.
I will reserve my comments about inter-op till they release their API and I get to play with it.
Xcode Cloud seems to be a blessing for iOS developers who don't have exposure to CI/CD systems. And that includes most iOS developers. And also it will be a blessing for companies since hiring good CI/CD engineers for iOS is really hard.
My personal view is, Xcode cloud does a lot of things what fastlane was doing using Apples Cloud infrastructure.
Opinion columns are not scientific sources. To the article's credit recklessness from people are is the reason for the spike. But doesn't absolves a leadership that claimed to have concurred Covid-19 and have no clue about disaster management. Indians deserved better.
The response from the government for this wave is pretty bad and they took way too much time to act for sure. But, what you are saying is polar opposite from the article that OP posted.
The reason isn't one or the another, it is the combination of both. Yes, Indians deserved better but the people's recklessness is so out of bounds in large cities (speaking from my own experience) that many knew this type of wave can happen and it did happen. The worst part is people ignored all the self-precautions and acted like everything is back to normal.
So in the end, it is the combination of both, people's recklessness and delayed (unplanned as well) response from the government.
There have been more than enough scientific sources published for the effectiveness of masks. I hope you still don't doubt that part. I will not cite them. People have been crowding and not wearing masks across the country. Do you want a scientific source for that? There may never be one. The Indians who step out of their homes are aware of this already.
No government or healthcare system can keep up with people flouting the scientific recommendations on such a scale.
I was not disagreeing with the articles claim people flouting rules caused a spike. But the people or the country isn't by itself responsible. Rather a callous government that was indifferent to this pandemic is.
It had an year to prepare. It did nothing more than PR works
What's with the hyperbole? To disprove your point, I just have to point to one thing that the government did that was not PR?
- What narrative, specifically?
- At the time, I too was in support of supplying vaccines to countries who were in desperate need of it. I still don't mind waiting a few months if the vaccines that should have come to me go to a healthcare worker in some other country instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26346021
- There is no reason to take anything Shiv Sena says at face value. This is the single worst party in India. If law and order had worked in India, these people would have been declared terrorists long before most of us were born. They continue to mistreat doctors (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vUUQEpJEG4) and threaten hospitals (https://twitter.com/amitsurg/status/1299352826636722176) across the state. Also, while all other states had the pandemic somewhat under control at one time or another, MH consistently stayed at #1 or #2 among the worst affected states.
Shiv Sena is for sure known for their thuggery and being a party of regionalistic goons. They're hardly very different from their erstwhile allies the BJP though.
I agree with you that larger mass gatherings have a clear responsibility. However, cherry-picking the farmers protest which was dissenting a government policy when there were multiple other events and a clearly clue-less government feels like government propaganda.
My point is not that farmer protests should be blamed. The blame and responsibility of this surge clearly lies with the government and ruling party celebrating `victory` pre-maturely. My point is that we should not propagate a wrong message that somehow the protests were immune from being a super spreader, making people think it is alright to continue being part of a mass gathering, whatever the cause.
What are the sources of this claim ? A general consensus was the false narrative that claimed India have conquered Covid, resulting in people ignoring the safety measured cause this.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01059-y
If you are looking for super spreader events its more likely the large election gatherings caused a spike.
Blaming a protest that was taking place even months before looks like propaganda.
The initial lock down and panic eventually made people deny existence of Covid, along with a narrative that Indians are immune to Covid. Later the leadership started claiming India already conquered Covid. https://www.livemint.com/science/health/we-are-in-the-endgam...
To answer your question, people were gathering for events other than rallies
Where does in the link he claims covid is conquered. He specifically says we are in endgame and to succeed politics should be kept out of the Covid-19 vaccination drive. There were too many guys questioning vaccination. Why twist the sentence?
> Where does in the link he claims covid is conquered. He specifically says we are in endgame and to succeed politics should be kept out of the Covid-19 vaccination drive. There were too many guys questioning vaccination. Why twist the sentence?
"Today, Covid cases are declining rapidly in India ... 18 percent of the world's population is in India, a country that saved mankind from a big disaster by saving its citizens from the pandemic."
That sentence is not there in the link. And it even does not say covid has ended. Let me paste a text from the article to say bad badly the op changed the meaning
He sad " We need to follow 3 steps: Keep politics out of the COVID-19 vaccination drive, Trust the science behind COVID-19 Vaccines, and ensure our near & dear ones get vaccinated on time."
Impressive that it works well with my native language Malayalam. However, it would be nice to notify the user that adding a profile picture is required to sign up. My girlfriend who is non-tech savvy was confused + stuck at the page.
I am an Indian and knows Hindi. I am curious to know how it is offensive or an insult. And among students it may earn some giggles and nothing more. And for South India, which probably has the infrastructure to use a library like this, Hindi isn't even the medium for communication.
Thanks for this background info. I also agree with your assessment - so far its just gotten some giggles and maybe even some extra attention from students who are not always easy to motivate when it comes to math. Its also racked up quite a few references in scientific publications (as its the only library offering these types of easy visualizations) - so it does appear most can appreciate it for the silly joke it was meant to be.
But calling it the "best payment system in the world"! And west wants it so bad sounds like blind exaggerations.
United States is not the only western country. Scandinavian countries has Swish (2012), Vipps (2013), and Mobile pay (2015), Canada has Interac.