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Online bill aggregators like SBI Unipay provide a common platform for paying all bills; attractive reward points are an added incentive for users to transact on these portals.
Users of SBI Unipay, the online bill payment aggregator service of the country’s top bank SBI, have not been able to pay their credit card bills on the portal since the evening of July 18. The portal has removed all bill payment options (except SBI Internet Banking). Debit card was the latest option that SBI Unipay removed, users complained on social media platforms.
“They have removed all the options. Now only SBI internet banking is available. Will they bring back the debit card option?” asked a user on social news aggregator Reddit.
“SBI Unipay website tata bye bye. Debit card payment option gone. Everything was fine till 3pm today. Disclaimer: It could be a technical glitch as well,” a user posted on X (formerly Twitter).
“It was actually working till 7:15pm. I think it will be back after some bug fixes,” another user posted on X.
Was actually working until 7:15.
I think it will be back after I fix some bugs— Arpan (@ArpanPrem) July 18, 2024
An email questionnaire sent to SBI seeking details on why the aggregator had removed all options except the bank’s netbanking option remained unanswered till the time of filing this report. This is not the first time SBI Unipay has faced user complaints over transaction-related issues.
In March this year, users complained that they received ‘transaction failed’ messages on the platform. And they were very disappointed when they found that money was deducted from their savings accounts, which did not get credited to their credit card accounts. Earlier this month, some users faced transaction-related issues.
Bill payment aggregators like SBI Unipay act as an intermediary between customers and multiple billers, including utility services, telecom companies, tax levying local bodies and insurance companies. Such aggregators offer the benefit of paying all bills on a single platform.
Apart from this, they also offer flexible payment options, due date reminders for bill payments, and auto payment features. They allow users to pay their bills using net banking, credit cards, debit cards, UPI (Unified Payments Interface), prepaid cards, and mobile wallets. Amazon Pay India, Google Pay, SBI Unipay, BillDesk, Mobikwik, Cred, and FreeCharge are the main online bill aggregators.
Customers prefer online bill aggregators because, apart from the ease of payment, they also offer attractive reward points and credit miles. In fact, many users avail the services of bill aggregators like SBI Unipay to earn these reward points.
“The DC (debit card) option is gone, which hurts more than the glitch is fixable. SBI Unipay is probably the only bill payment provider with all banks that has 4900 MCC (gives rewards with no limit on multiple DCs),” posted a user on X.
The DC option is gone which hurts more than the glitch is a fix, SBI Unipay is probably the only bill payment provider with all banks that has 4900 MCCs (gives uncapped rewards on multiple DCs). The post includes reasons etc why users won’t be able to see it anymore.
The rest is according to you…
— akash (@ccg33k) July 19, 2024
MCC stands for Merchant Category Code, it is a four-digit number used by the credit card issuer to classify purchases made using a particular code. MCC 4900 is the code for electric, gas, sanitary and water utilities and similar services.
“This was awesome, I probably earned a million or more miles using this app and another app that still lets you pay via cc (credit card). Can’t post because that might be shut down too,” said one user on Reddit.
“Did this cost you any fees? Is this considered a utility payment? It also seems like you can’t pay using DC right now? I have a big HDFC bill to pay next week and I’m considering SBI Unipay,” another Reddit user posted in response.
SBI Unipay has had several technical glitches in the past. A user said that the portal was also allowing users to pay credit card bills using other credit cards. Direct ‘credit card’ payment option, UPI option and debit card option were available on the bill aggregator’s platform.
Alirajan M is a journalist with over two decades of experience. He has worked with several leading media organisations in the country and has been writing on mutual funds for nearly 16 years.
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