Yes — and what makes it feel effortless is that four of the five steps happen without either person doing anything. Fig. 8.18 sets them out in order:
| Step | What happens | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kumar scans the QR code of Piyush, a vegetable vendor, on a payment application on his mobile phone, enters the amount to be sent, and then his UPI PIN | Kumar — this is the only manual step |
| 2 | The application sends a payment request to Kumar’s bank — the payer’s bank — which forwards the request to NPCI | The app and the bank |
| 3 | NPCI decrypts the request, verifies the user’s UPI PIN and processes the transfer | NPCI |
| 4 | Funds are received by the payee’s bank (Piyush’s) | The banks |
| 5 | Piyush receives the payment in his bank account | Piyush — who only has to look at his phone |
Compare that with the old way, which the chapter describes on page 206: “transferring funds from one person’s bank account to another person’s account required filling out the cheque with the details of the receiver, dropping it into the bank’s drop box or handing it over to a bank official. It was time-consuming and discouraged a majority of people from using banking services.” A vegetable vendor could never have been paid by cheque at all.
The chapter names three more reasons the system spread so fast: it worked during the COVID-19 pandemic, when social distancing made cashless payment essential; its design is user-friendly and available in multiple languages, so it is “accessible to everyone”; and it leaves a record, where the cash it replaced left none.