657.91 Million.
That’s the number of UPI QR codes in circulation in the country as of March 2025. A 91.25% increase compared to the previous year.
The most popular form of these QR codes is the static QR code. These are usually printed as a sticker or used as a standee on the shop counter.These QRs contain fixed payment information – such as the merchants UPI ID or VPA and requires the payer to manually enter the amount to be paid.
The more advanced evolution of UPI QR code is the Dynamic QR – which started becoming popular in India around 2020.
Dynamic QR refers to a transaction specific auto-generated QR code which contains unique information for each payment.- such as the exact amount, order ID and more. A Dynamic QR or DQR provides the payer the convenience of an auto-filled payment amount, hence removing all manual errors. DQRs are largely used by bigger merchants because they can be easily linked to backend systems and allow for better reconciliation. It is also more secure and immune to manipulation compared to static QRs.
In fact, India has mandated DQR on receipts issued to customers by businesses with Annual turnover over 500 crores.
The Hidden Challenges of Using Dynamic QR Codes Outside Payment Pages
Most dynamic QR codes today are built primarily for online payment pages. When repurposed for other applications, they often lead to challenges and friction, failing to meet the unique demands of those use cases.
- No Payment Retries on DQR
A standard Dynamic QR treats failed payments as terminal. This means that if payment fails once on a DQR due to network issues, app errors, or insufficient funds, the system won’t allow another attempt on the same QR..
But customers behave differently in reality. Customers, used to scanning static QRs might attempt to re-scan the same QR as they do at a local kirana stone. In a B2B scenario where DQR might be printed on an invoice and instant regeneration is not possible.
This mismatch creates confusion and leads to
- Lost payments
- Dissatisfied customers
- Increased operational costs
- Short Expiry timelines
Dynamic QR Codes usually have a TTL ( Time-to-live) beyond which they expire. In most cases, the TTL is usually up to 3-4 hours. In fast paced scenarios – this works. However in scenarios such as printed invoices, door deliveries and invoices shared over digital media – the short TTL window leads to payment failures.
Our Solution – Dynamic QRs built for Real World
We have redesigned our Dynamic QRs to reflect how payments actually happen, not how they are expected to.
With our new Dynamic QR experience built for real world scenarios like Pay on Delivery –
- Same DQR can be reused after a payment failure too
Customers can retry payment on the same QR code within the longer validity period
- Customisable TTLs
Extend the DQR expiry or TTL to hours, days or even upto 30 day or more based on your business need.
- Smarter Session Handling
We only mark a transaction as failed and share the reason for failure upon final confirmation with the bank after the TTL expiry
The new DQR experience from Cashfree solves real life scenarios where delayed payments are common.
- This could include pay-on-delivery (POD) where QR is generated at the doorstep where customer might need multiple attempts to complete the payment.
- It also works for printed invoices where payment might be made hours or days later.
- Additionally this also works for QRs shared over whatsapp or other digital media
In all these cases, extended TTL and support for re-attempts makes transactions smoother and improves customer satisfaction.
Go Live with the new Dynamic QR solution for your business instantly with Cashfree Payments.
