Dear upi.link users
Thanks for using upi.link and making it grow organically to over ~2k daily hits.
Due to a takedown request for the domain upi.link from the NPCI I have had to shut down upi.link for now.
I created upi.link to solve my own problem. To date, sharing a upi request outside an App is not possible without an intermediary for free. After sharing a prototype with people in my workplace, I found out that it was useful beyond what I had imagined. I shared it with more people and finally put it up online. It has not been my best work but more or less was an experiment for me. Running upi.link with the least amount of cost and infra setup was a personal challenge for me. For over a year I had run this without any extra cost to me except the domain name.
Unfortunately, I was naive when I started building this to assume that the NPCI is a government body and UPI is a platform. In reality, the NPCI is a non-profit (not non-commercial) body and UPI is its product. Even though some
of the UPI specs are open, they can hardly be called an open product. NPCI owns a trademark for UPI and also has a guideline for domains using the trademark.
At the moment, I am working on other things and I don’t have the resources to keep the upi.link domain online by either asking/paying NPCI for allowing the use of this domain nor do I have any bandwidth in further developing anything on top of upi.link as of now.
I would also like to add that being involved in the fintech space in India, I have come to appreciate what UPI has provided all of us in the short term. I am also aware of the rising amounts of scams happening with UPI which the NPCI tries to prevent through partner apps like BHIM, GooglePay, PhonePe etc. Also, the fact that it has successfully reached and onboarded so many people and organizations is a monumental feat in itself.
Some people had suggested open-sourcing this project but unfortunately; some decisions, I had taken to reduce the maintenance cost of hosting the website, hinder the scope of open-sourcing the project.
Regards
Rohan