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

> Why take on debt if you don't need to?

what debt?

> UPI is directly connected to your bank account.

oh, then it's a hard pass from me. i do not connect anything to my bank account and keep cards in separate banks for security.

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.

> 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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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).