A small side project, born out of a small discomfort.
Every month, like clockwork, bill payments show up. Electricity. Broadband. Mobile. Credit cards. And every time, most apps want the same thing first:
“Allow email access so we can read your statements.”
Which sounds convenient.
Until you pause for half a second and think — wait, why does a bill payment app need to read my inbox?
That pause is where this project started.
The Tiny Friction That Adds Up
I get why apps do this.
Emails already have the data. Parsing statements is easier than asking users to type things manually. It feels “smart”.
But it also means:
- Your inbox becomes a data source
- Your financial habits become a dataset
- And convenience quietly replaces consent
Most of us click “Allow” because… well, bills need to be paid. Life is busy. Friction is annoying.
But what if bill payments didn’t need to be smart?
What if they just needed to be simple?
What This Tool Does (And Doesn’t)
So I built a tiny tool:
👉 https://upiccbillpay.nologs.in/
It does exactly one thing.
You enter:
- Your bank
- Your credit card issuer
- The standard UPI bill payment format
And it generates a valid UPI ID you can paste directly into any UPI app.
No login.
No email scanning.
No statement access.
No dashboards pretending to be helpful.
It doesn’t track your bills.
It doesn’t remind you.
It doesn’t optimize anything.
It just helps you pay.
Why This Felt Important
This isn’t an anti-app rant.
Apps like CRED solve real problems for real people.
But over time, I’ve started appreciating systems that:
- Do less
- Ask for less
- Assume less trust by default
There’s something calming about tools that stay in their lane.
You don’t need a financial relationship with every product you use.
Sometimes you just want to complete an action and move on with your day.
Pay bill.
Close app.
Done.
A Small Experiment in Intentional Design
This project isn’t a product.
It’s not monetized.
It’s not trying to scale.
It’s more like a question in code form:
How much data should a simple action really require?
And maybe a reminder that:
- Convenience doesn’t have to mean surveillance
- Privacy doesn’t have to be complicated
- And good tools don’t always need to be clever
Sometimes, boring is beautiful.
If you’re curious, you can try it here:
https://upiccbillpay.nologs.in/
Or don’t.
Even noticing the trade-offs is a win.
Because intentional systems — financial or otherwise — start with asking why before clicking allow.