In what is expected to give a further boost to the use of digital payments, the Reserve Bank of India, on Tuesday, launched UPI facility for feature phones and a 24x7 helpline for digital payments. The move will benefit about 400 million of the existing mobile users with feature phones.

RBI Governor Shri Shaktikanta Das highlighted the importance of these initiatives in enhancing the diversity, utility and transformational power of digital innovations in the country, and said these initiatives will further deepen the digital ecosystem and financial inclusion

“India’s digital economy has flourished over the past few years. The UPI has played a major role in this process… I don’t see a day when we are far away from reaching a transaction volume of 100 lakh crore on UPI. The two landmark initiatives being launched today represent two diverse and two significant dimensions of our payments ecosystem,” said Das.

Helpful features

“Considering that there are more than 40 crore feature phone mobile subscribers in the country, UPI123pay will materially improve the options for such users to access UPI,” said the RBI in a statement.

As part of the initiative, multiple solutions on UPI for feature phone payments have been launched, including UPI payment through IVR Number, app functionality in feature phones, missed call-based approach, and proximity sound-based payments.

With these facilities, feature phone users willbe able to perform various financial and non-financial transactions such as P2P payments, utility bill payments, NETC FASTag recharge, mobile bills, DTH and mobile phone top-up, along with linking a bank account, setting UPI PIN and account balance enquiry.

Voice assistance

They will also be able to link bank accounts, set or change UPI PIN and check account balance.

At present, efficient access to UPI is available on smart phones. UPI can be accessed through NUUP (National Unified USSD Platform) using the short code of *99#, but the option is cumbersome and not popular.

“There has been a huge increase in digital payments but a large part of this digitisation to people who hold a smart phone,” said T Rabi Sankar, Deputy Governor, RBI, adding that UPI transactions are largely limited for the roughly 40 crore people with feature phones. “If we have to go over to the next stage of development, we will have to think of ways of how UPI will be available on feature phones and offline means,” he said.

Biswamohan Mahapatra, non executive Chairman, National Payments Corporation of India, noted that as many as 40.49 billion transactions with ₹74.51 trillion in value have been carried out through UPI this fiscal, which is almost double the number of transactions in volume terms last fiscal, and reflects increased use of digital payments, including UPI.

NPCI aims to process a billion transactions a day on UPI by taking digital transactions to every household in the company, he said, adding that the facility will also help the RBI move to the objective of a less cash economy.

Industry players also welcomed the initiatives.

Muralidharan Srinivasan, Head of Payments, APMEA Region, FIS, said UPI through feature phones has re-established India in the leadership path on digital payments.

“The DigiSaathi helpline and UPI123Pay are bound to see further innovations that can orchestrate payments across industry verticals,” he further said.

 Mandar Agashe, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, Sarvatra Technologies, said UPI 123PAY is an excellent initiative to bridge the digital divide and aid the penetration of digital services among low-income groups.

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