New Delhi, Aug. 31 -- The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is set to make UPI AutoPay interoperable, allowing users to port mandates across UPI apps, and merchants to move existing mandates from one payment gateway to another, four people aware of the development said.

The move could reduce two forms of lock-in in the recurring-payments market. Consumers will be able to shift existing AutoPay mandates to another UPI app instead of cancelling and recreating subscriptions, insurance premiums, systematic investment plans (SIPs) or loan repayments, while merchants will be able to move existing mandates to another payment provider when they switch gateways.

For users, a cross-app view of mandates could also make it easier to tra...