Introducing new payment behaviour for FASTag Recharges
Adapting payments around customer control.

A change in UPI pricing put an established experience under pressure.

FASTag recharging was already a familiar task for BlackBuck’s fleet owners. They entered an amount, paid through UPI, and checked that their balance had updated.

NPCI, the organisation that operates UPI, announced a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) framework for selected payments to businesses. MDR is a processing fee borne by the merchant.

Under the announced framework, eligible merchant payments above ₹2,000 would attract a charge. The standard rate was 0.4%, with a flat ₹5 fee for specified categories. Merchant payments up to ₹2,000 would remain free of MDR. Read the framework announcement →

For businesses receiving frequent larger payments, this would introduce a recurring processing cost.

According to the project brief, UPI contributed approximately 78% of BlackBuck’s platform transaction value. Our FASTag project planned around a ₹5 cost per eligible payment above ₹2,000.

A fleet owner could make the same ₹5,000 recharge as before, while BlackBuck incurred an additional cost. Addressing that cost meant revisiting a journey customers already knew.

How could we reduce the potential payment cost while preserving customers’ ability—and willingness—to complete their recharge?

I designed two variants.

Split payments divided a larger UPI payment into transactions of ₹2,000 or less. A ₹5,000 payment became ₹2,000 + ₹2,000 + ₹1,000.

Autopay used a customer-authorised UPI mandate. Recurring autopay payments were exempt under the announced framework, making this another approach to explore for larger recharges. Autopay exemption explained →

The team initially favoured autopay. Repeating payment actions for one recharge seemed cumbersome, and I shared that concern. We nevertheless took both designs into testing.

The first round involved nine fleet owners: two large and seven small.

Customers’ resistance to autopay centred on their perceived loss of control over money. One participant described electricity payments continuing after he moved out of a rented property.

For these customers, additional payment steps were more acceptable than an automatic payment arrangement. Some were willing to reduce their recharge amounts to preserve the regular UPI flow.

The participant open to autopay valued being able to recharge up to ₹15,000 in one go and maintain his usual recharge behaviour.

Testing also revealed two interaction issues: participants skipped educational UI, and one tapped the split representation expecting to proceed instead of using the Pay CTA.

Retain both journeys for different payment needs.

I presented the research to stakeholders, and we agreed to build both flows.

Split payments addressed the stronger preference in testing. Autopay remained an alternative for customers making larger recharges, where repeated payments could become burdensome.

Pilot eligibility and cohort rules determined which journey customers received. Retaining both approaches gave us room to evaluate their usefulness across different recharge behaviours.

Bring the action into the active payment step.

In V1, the split breakdown appeared in the middle of the screen, while the Pay CTA was fixed at the bottom, separated by other content.

The participant who tapped the split representation prompted me to reconsider that separation.

I moved the CTA inside the active payment step, alongside its amount and payment sources. The revised example shows ₹500 from the wallet and ₹2,000 through UPI, followed immediately by Pay ₹2,000. Upcoming payments remain visible below.

The intention was to make the next action easier to identify by grouping it with the information the customer was reviewing.

Explain the change within the task.

Participants skipped educational UI while trying to finish their recharge. Adding an explanation did not ensure they would engage with it.

I proposed an audio explanation on arrival at the payment summary. The idea drew on earlier KYC research, where I had observed Uber using video with audio and Rapido using audio to explain onboarding.

Engineering could not accommodate voiceover within the release timeline. I raised my concern about relying on text given the research, and we settled on a concise note in the payment summary.

The final split screen explains the ₹2,000 threshold before the bill details and payment sequence. The mandate screen uses a shorter explanation with a “Know more” option.

Compare the explanation in the final split-payment screens and the autopay screens.

Explore the audio concept Not shipped

More payment steps to preserve customer control

Split payments introduced repeated actions and more opportunities for interruption. We accepted that additional effort because eight of nine participants were willing to use the flow.

Keeping autopay in the product gave us another approach for customers who valued completing larger recharges in one go.

A contextual CTA over a consistent bottom placement

Embedding the Pay CTA in the active step broke from the original bottom-fixed placement. Its visibility would now depend on the content and screen size.

I prioritised the relationship between the payment breakdown and its action. That choice made discoverability and scrolling important checks for follow-up evaluation.

A written explanation within the release deadline

Audio offered another way to communicate the change, but required implementation and testing time we did not have.

The written note met the release constraint while leaving a concern unresolved: participants had skipped explanations during research. Customer understanding remained something to evaluate.

The follow-up evaluation framework covers ten new fleet owners trying both revised prototypes, with the order alternated between participants.

The task is to complete a simulated recharge with ₹5,500 total payable: ₹500 from the wallet and ₹5,000 through UPI. Completion, understanding and preference are assessed separately.

Results used in this working example

Additional checks examine whether customers understand the payment arrangement:

This project changed how I evaluate customer effort. Repeated payments looked like the obvious weakness in our initial discussion. Field research showed that customers weighed that effort against previous experiences and their desire to control payments.

It also reinforced the need to assess understanding alongside completion. Reaching a confirmation screen does not establish that someone understands the split or the scope of a mandate.

I would carry both questions into future payment work: can customers complete the task, and are they comfortable with what they are agreeing to?