The Reserve Bank of India has proposed to make interoperability mandatory for full-KYC prepaid instruments (PPIs) and for all payment acceptance infrastructure.
The RBI had issued guidelines in October 2018 for adoption of interoperability on a voluntary basis for full-KYC PPIs.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, on Wednesday, noted that the migration towards interoperability has not been significant.
“To incentivise the migration of PPIs to full-KYC, it is proposed to increase the current limit on outstanding balance in such PPIs from ₹1 lakh to ₹2 lakh,” he further said.
Consumer-friendly move
The move towards mandatory interoperability is being seen as consumer friendly as it will allow customers of mobile wallets to transfer funds from one wallet to another.
The Statement on Development and Regulatory Policies said: “To promote optimal utilisation of payment instruments (cards, wallets), and given the constraint of scarce acceptance infrastructure (PoS devices, ATMs, QR codes, bill-payment touch points), the RBI has been stressing on the benefits of interoperability amongst the issuing and acquiring entities alike, banks or non-banks.”
Further, as a confidence-boosting measure, and to bring uniformity across PPI issuers, it is now proposed to allow cash withdrawals for full-KYC PPIs of non-bank PPI issuers.
“This measure, in conjunction with the mandate for interoperability, will boost migration to full-KYC PPIs and will also complement the acceptance infrastructure in Tier III to VI centres,” said Das.
At present, cash withdrawal is allowed only for full-KYC PPIs issued by banks.
“The increase in the current limit on the outstanding balance in full-KYC PPIs from ₹1 lakh to ₹2 lakh will incentivise migration to full-KYC PPIs, which will further bring financial inclusion across the country. We support an open and interoperable digital payments ecosystem and are looking forward to the detailed guidelines on this subject,” said Satish Gupta, MD and CEO of Paytm Payments Bank.
Manoj Chopra, V-P and Head, Products and Innovation, InfrasoftTech, said interoperability brings wallets on a par with cards and banks. “This will be beneficial as the customer can use his/her wallet balance across multiple merchants. Ideally, a customer can now use only one wallet for all digital payments,” he noted.