RBI To Introduce Auto Replenishment Of UPI Lite Wallet
UPI Lite is a payment feature used to process low-value transactions, mainly that have been set at below Rs 500.
The Reserve Bank of India said on Friday that it would introduce the auto-replenishment feature in the UPI Lite wallet soon. Governor Shaktikanta Das proposed the inclusion of UPI Lite under the e-mandate framework in his monetary policy address.
This would ensure that customers have a facility where they can automatically replenish their wallet in case their balance goes below a threshold. It would also encourage the ease of making small-value digital payments, Das said.
With this, the RBI also proposed to dispense with the requirement of additional authentication or pre-debit notification. This is because the funds remain with the customers as they move from their accounts to their wallets.
The National Payments Corp.'s UPI Lite is a payment feature, introduced in September 2022, to process low-value transactions and act as an on-device wallet. At present, this feature has a daily transaction limit of Rs 2,000, while the limit for a single transaction is Rs 500.
Before this, users could complete transactions even in places without connectivity thanks to the launch of the UPI Lite X feature for offline payments.
In addition, RBI has proposed the inclusion of recurring payments for Fastag, the National Common Mobility Card, etc. with the auto-replenishment facility under the e-mandate framework.
This would apply to the above-mentioned and many such payments, which are recurring in nature but without any fixed periodicity. This is because such payments are usually made as and when needed, and replenishment is not time- or amount-specific, the RBI said in its statement.
As soon as the balance in the customer's respective FASTag or NCMC drops below a predetermined threshold, the facility will activate or trigger the automatic replenishment feature.
The RBI issued the framework for processing e-mandates for recurring transactions in January 2020. Since the current framework requires a pre-debit notification at least 24 hours prior to the actual debit, the regulator has proposed an exemption to this requirement.
"It is proposed to exempt this requirement for payments made from the customer's account for automatic replenishment of balances in Fastag, NCMC, etc. under the e-mandate framework," the RBI said.
Digital Payments Intelligence Platform
Governor Das stated in the monetary policy address that the RBI has proposed setting up a digital payments intelligence platform in order to mitigate payment fraud risks.
For this, the regulator has constituted a committee under the chairmanship of AP Hota, former managing director and chief executive of NPCI. This committee would submit its recommendations within two months after examining the various aspects of setting up this platform.
This move comes in response to the RBI's efforts over the years to ensure the safety and security of digital payments. In recent times, many instances of fraud have been observed where the victims are influenced to make payments or share their credentials.
"While the payment ecosystem (banks, NPCI, card networks, payment 2 aggregators, and payment apps) take various measures on an ongoing basis to protect customers from such frauds, there is a need for network-level intelligence and real-time data sharing across payment systems," RBI said in its statement.
The monetary policy committee kept the benchmark repo rate unchanged for the eight straight meet while being focused on 'withdrawal of accommodation' to ensure that inflation progressively aligns with the target while supporting growth.
