The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday said interoperability amongst Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) issued by banks and non-banks should be enabled by March 31, 2022.
PPIs are instruments that facilitate purchase of goods and services, including financial services, remittances, funds transfers, against the value stored in/on such instruments.
RBI said it will be mandatory for PPI issuers to give the holders of full-Know-Your-Customer (KYC) PPIs (KYC-compliant PPIs) interoperability through authorised card networks (for PPIs in the form of cards) and UPI (for PPIs in the form of electronic wallets). Interoperability shall be mandatory on the acceptance side as well, it added.
As per RBI circular, PPIs for Mass Transit Systems (PPI-MTS) shall remain exempted from interoperability while Gift PPI issuers have the option to offer interoperability.
The maximum amount outstanding in respect of full-KYC PPIs (KYC-compliant PPIs) has been increased from ₹1 lakh to ₹2 lakh.
Cash withdrawal
RBI said the feature of cash withdrawal will be permitted in respect of full-KYC PPIs issued by non-bank PPI issuers as well, with the maximum limit of ₹2,000 per transaction and an overall limit of ₹10,000 per month per PPI, and all cash withdrawal transactions performed using a card/wallet, shall be authenticated by an Additional Factor of Authentication (AFA)/PIN.
Issuers shall put in place suitable cooling period for cash withdrawal upon opening the PPIs or loading/re-loading of funds into PPIs to mitigate the risk of fraudulent use of PPIs.
Further, any PPI issuer offering this facility shall put in place proper customer redressal mechanisms. Complaints in this regard shall fall under the ambit of the respective ombudsmen schemes and instructions on limiting liability of customers.
RBI said the cash withdrawal limit from Points of Sale (PoS) terminals using debit cards and open system prepaid cards issued by banks in India has been rationalised to ₹2,000 per transaction within an overall monthly limit of ₹10,000 across all locations (Tier 1 to 6 centres).