How to bid through UPI-backed ASBA for IPOs

BL Research Bureau

To reduce the time taken to buy shares by retail investors in an initial public offering (IPO), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) have rolled out an Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for IPOs.

From now on, retail investors will have to mandatorily bid for shares in an IPO through the UPI if they are applying for an IPO through registered brokers, depository participant and registered transfer agents.

This move will bring down the time it takes to process the IPO application forms to three days from the current six days, NPCI says.

UPI is now mandatory for retail investors who want to bid for shares in an IPO through the Application Supported by Blocked Amount or ASBA mode.

“Presently, less than half of the retail investors participating in IPOs are coming through the digital mode with the balance coming through physical forms via ASBA. The regulators want to cut out the physical / manual intervention completely and make the process paperless,” says Head of Research HDFC Securities, Deepak Jasani.

This move is to push all payments for IPOs through digital means, says CEO of 5Paisa.com, Prakarsh Gagdani. He adds, “If you were investing in an IPO with your bank, through internet banking, that still continues. Also, if your bank allows you to apply for an IPO through its website, you can continue to bid for shares through your bank account.”

How do you set up a UPI before applying for an IPO?

1. Make sure the bank is live on UPI

There are 47 banks that are live on UPI with the IPO feature. Some banks also have separate UPI apps. If your mobile number is updated with your bank, all you have to do is to set up a UPI ID. to do so, download your own bank’s UPI-enabled application from the app store, and select an ID.

Alternatively, you could download the BHIM UPI application from the app store. All the banks live on UPI are aggregated on this app for easy use. This app also has an illustrative demo to walk you through the registration process for UPI and for creating the UPI ID, also called as a virtual payment address (VPA). A VPA is usually in the format of xyz@axisbank or abc@icicibank.

2. Enter UPI ID on IPO application form

Investors looking to subscribe to an IPO will have to enter the UPI ID on the application form of the IPO. When the form is processed by the bank and the registered transfer agent, you will receive a notification on the BHIM UPI app, or your bank’s native application which allows you to use the UPI. When you receive the notification, use your UPI pin (selected while creating the UPI ID), and approve blocking of the amount required for the number of shares you have bid for in the IPO application form. Make sure to check the application details before approving the transaction.

This way, you have approved the amount being blocked under ASBA route through the UPI’s mandate registration process for making payments. Once the allotment ratio is decided, after the bids for the IPO are in, the remaining amount over and above the shares that were allotted to you will be unblocked from your account. The whole IPO payment processing will be completed within three days.

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