UPI without a smartphone: RBI to launch UPI-based payment for feature phones today
The Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had announced in December 2021 that people with feature phones would soon be able to use UPI to make payments. The central bank has said through a tweet on its official Twitter account that it will launch UPI for feature phones today (March 8).
UPI has become such an important part of India’s retail digital payment system that the Reserve Bank of India has decided to expand its capabilities to allow individuals to conduct a wider range of transactions. UPI is the country’s largest retail payment system in terms of transaction volume, showing wide acceptance, especially for small value purchases.
Watch out for the launch of UPI for feature phones – UPI123Pay and 24*7 helpline for digital payments – DigiSaathi by RBI Governor @DasShaktikanta at 12 noon on March 08, 2022
YouTube: https://t.co/lb5mhivRfd#rbitoday #rbigovernor #DPAW #UPI #digisaathi @UPI_NPCI
— ReserveBankOfIndia (@RBI) March 8, 2022
Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
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- Product type – Instant real-time inter-bank payment system
- Owner – National Payments Corporation of India
- Produced by – National Payments Corporation of India
- Country – India
- Introduced – 11 April 2016; 5 years ago
- Markets – India, Bhutan, Nepal, Malaysia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates (International by cross border payment agreements)
“Popular UPI payment platforms such as Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm are no longer just payment instruments and are turning into full-stack financial service providers. As the digital payment system is set to beat offline transactions, increasing the limit is a welcome move. This is also in line with the long-term agenda of the government to build Start-up India and Digital India,” said Siddharth Maurya, Resource Expert, Fund Management.
Users using feature phones were previously unable to utilise the UPI capability to make payments. After the launch of UPI-based payment for feature phones, a large number of users who have feature phones will use USSD to execute UPI transactions. These purchases may be made by SMS and do not require access to the internet.
Feature phones aren’t smartphones; they just have the ability to make calls and send text messages. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das believes it is important to include feature phone users into mainstream digital payments to increase financial penetration. India has a sizable mobile phone user base of approximately 118 crore people (TRAI, October 2021). A sizable portion of this population still uses feature phones. According to Statista, there will be around 74 crore smartphone users in July 2021.
Launch of UPI for Feature Phones – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=078qdY_KwUc
