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Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a real-time bank payment method in India. Customers pay from their bank account through a UPI app and approve each payment with their UPI PIN. Payrails processes UPI through five payment service providers (PSPs). The customer journey, the required request fields and the supported workflows differ between them. Pick a PSP below for its setup steps and request examples.

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How a UPI payment works

  1. The customer selects UPI at checkout.
  2. Payrails returns a redirect from the PSP. Depending on the PSP and the journey you request, it opens the customer’s UPI app, a QR code page or a PSP-hosted payment page.
  3. The customer approves the payment in their UPI app.
  4. Payrails receives the final result from the PSP and updates the payment.
Each payment is single-use: the customer approves every payment on its own. Payrails captures UPI payments immediately, so a successful payment is final. To return funds, refund the payment.

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Choose the UPI journey

Adyen and Unlimit support two journeys, selected with meta.paymentMethods.upi.flow:
  • intent: the customer goes straight to a UPI app on their phone through a upi:// deep link.
  • qr: Payrails shows a QR code on a Payrails-hosted page, and the customer scans it with any UPI app.
UPI journey
Payrails rejects any other flow value before it routes the payment. Boku, dLocal and Pine Labs ignore the field and send the customer to their own payment page. Each PSP guide describes the default journey.

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Supported currencies and countries

UPI supports INR (Indian rupee) as its only presentment currency.

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Integrate UPI

Choose the PSP that processes UPI for you. Each guide covers the PSP-side setup, the Payrails configuration and the request fields that PSP requires.

Adyen

UPI via Adyen

Boku

UPI via Boku

dLocal

UPI via dLocal

Pine Labs

UPI via Pine Labs

Unlimit

UPI via Unlimit

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Compare PSPs

No PSP stores a reusable UPI token, so Save Instruments and merchant-initiated transactions (MIT) aren’t available for UPI.

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Ways to integrate UPI

  • Payrails SDK: the Web SDK shows UPI when your workflow returns it as a payment option, and redirects the customer. To control how the redirect opens, listen for the actionRequired event.
  • Payrails API: call lookup payment options, then authorize with upi as the paymentMethodCode. Each PSP guide lists the meta fields that PSP requires.
In both cases, confirm the final result through webhook notifications or the execution status. Don’t treat the customer’s return to your success URL as proof of payment.
Last modified on October 2, 2026