The RBI has issued a press release on November 8, 2019, which reports a phenomenal increase in E-payments in India, a substantial portion of which is through National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
To promote digitalisation and to further empower every citizen with an Exceptional (e) Payment Experience and provide them access to a bouquet of options, the Reserve Bank proposed in the press release to take the following steps:
- Mandate banks not to charge savings bank account customers for online transactions in the NEFT system with effect from January 2020.
- Operationalise the Acceptance Development Fund to increase acceptance infrastructure with effect from January 1, 2020.
- Constitute a Committee to assess the need for plurality of QR codes and merits of their co-existence or convergence from both systemic and consumer viewpoints.
- Permit all authorised payment systems and instruments (non-bank PPIs, cards and UPI) for linking with National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) FASTags. Going forward, this will facilitate the use of FASTags for parking, fuel, etc., payments in an interoperable environment.
- Enable processing of e-mandates for transactions through UPI.
RBI looks forward to actively engage with the payment system regulators in other jurisdictions and share its experience to derive synergies and reduce the cost and time taken for inward remittances, especially in key remittance corridors.
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