With the rise of digital money and transactions, it is important for every individual and business to know what a Virtual Payment Address is. Akin to an email id that is unique to one person and helps send and navigate things, a Virtual Payment Address is a unique ID given to individuals to mark their addresses for people who are using the Unified Payments Interface. 

After demonetization, the transactions rose in digital form via different payments apps such as Paytm, Google Pay, Phone Pe, etc. For each user that signed up on these platforms, they received a user name and ID to better locate the user and the transactions taking place. This gave rise to Virtual Payment Address and the widespread use of the term VPA. 

What is VPAs, the full form of VPA and how are they important? 

VPA stands for Virtual Payment Address and that is the full form of VPA. 

Virtual Payment Addresses, more commonly known as VPAs are virtual addresses that are given to individuals when they sign up on a digital payments app such as PayTM, Phone Pay or Google Pay. the idea behind a Virtual Payments Address is to make the transactions of sending and receiving money easier and replace the bank account details. 

When one needs to send money to another bank account multiple bank details such as account number, account name, IFSC Code, branch name, etc. are needed can be a tedious process and prone to error. To reduce the errors and the cumbersome process, a technology called the Virtual Payment Address was introduced which is a single line address to identify a person and send money to their bank account. 

With the use of a Virtual Payment Address, VPA individuals can send and receive money without needing the bank details of the opposite person and the entire transaction can be completed in under a few seconds. 

The importance of VPA – Virtual Payment Address

Because of the invention of VPA, it has become easier to transact with money with lesser details needed. The importance of the virtual payment address, VPA is also some of the major benefits of the VPA and how they are better than traditional payments and banking systems. Because of these reasons, some individuals and businesses prefer the VPA over the traditional payments method. 

Some of the importance of the Virtual Payment Address is: 

1. Less prone to errors 

While entering bank account details, since so many details, numbers and alphabets are required, the details entered could have mistakes in them causing errors and delay in transactions. Because of VPA, this issue is eradicated since a virtual payment address is usually easy and an online line address. 

2. Swift and quick transactions 

Many times for bank transactions, one needs to add the beneficiary and is only able to transfer the money 24 hours post. With the UPI and digital platforms, and the use of virtual payment addresses, these transactions can happen without a few minutes if not a few seconds. This stops the delay in transactions and assure swift movement of money. 

3. Money can be transferred anytime 

Be it a weekend, weekday, bank holiday or any other day of the week, the payments are never down and one can send payments anytime, anywhere. This is a huge advantage compared to the traditional banking system as banks are shut on certain days of the year and even after working hours. 

4. Economical and can be used by anyone 

Some bank transactions have a minimum account that needs to be transferred or have high transfer fees due to the nature of the transaction. This case does not arise with virtual payment addresses and UPI transactions since they do not have any minimum transfer amount and all transactions are free of cost. 

How to get VPA and what all are the requirements for it? 

To get a Virtual Payment Address, one first needs to have the Unified Payments Interface [UPI] app downloaded. Only once the UPI app is downloaded it is possible to get the VPA for an individual. 

Follow the following steps to know how once gets the VPA 

• Download the UPI app on your mobile phone and link the app to the bank account of your desired choice and the mobile number that is linked with the bank account and the one that you will use for future purposes. 
• Once the app is downloaded, link your bank account and enter all your details such as bank name, branch, IFSC code and the other requirements needed by the app. 
• There will be a mobile verification process that will send an OTP to your linked number and a security question that will need to be approved. 
• Once a bank account is done, a new user is created and they will receive their Virtual Payment Address which usually looks like this – johndoe@okhdfcbank 
• Some other examples of Virtual Payment Addresses are george112233@upi, seema123@okaxisbank and so on. 
• A VPA example is usually the name of the person followed by the ‘@’ sign and then usually the bank name. Because of this, a VPA is very easy to read and understand and hence is not prone to errors. 

These are some of the requirements and the steps that are necessary to carry out when one signs up on a UPI app and receives a new Virtual Payment Address. This VPA can then be used for all UPI transactions whether they’re done from Paytm, Phone Pe, Google Pay as the bank account linked to the VPA is still the same.

After one has received their VPA how can one send and receive money via VPA?

Sending and receiving money via Virtual Payment Address, VPA is very easy and can be learned by anyone in just a few simple steps. 

To send money and use the Virtual Payment Address, one needs to do the following steps: 

• Enter into the UPI app with your login details and the verification steps needed
• Choose fund transfer under the UPI option. Please note only during the UPI method will you need to use the VPA and hence if you want to send money via the VPA method, you need to choose UPI. 
• Once you have selected the option, enter the beneficiary and the beneficiary’s Virtual Payment Address, the amount and any remarks, if any. 
• Many times, an individual can have multiple VPAs and they then need to choose the VPA they want to send the money from. 

This is the entire process of sending money via Unified Payments Interface, UPI and hence using the address of the Virtual Payments Address, VPA. 

FAQs about Virtual Payment Address, VPA

1. What is the full form of VPA? 

VPA stands for Virtual Payment Address and is used widely for digital payment and transactions all over the country. 

2. Can anybody have a VPA? 

Yes. Once an individual has downloaded the Unified Payments Interface, UPI app, they get a Virtual Payment Address as their VPA id. This VPA id is then linked to the bank account which is used for digital transactions of payments. 

3. Is it possible to have more than one bank account? 

Yes. an individual can have more than one VPA account. Just how an individual can have multiple bank accounts, the same way an individual can have multiple VPA accounts which then need to be linked with other bank accounts and so on. 

4. Once a VPA is done, do you need other bank details to transfer money? 

No. Once you have linked your bank details to a VPA all the details are entered on the app, no other bank details are necessary for the transfer of money and one can transfer money with just the VPA address given. 

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