Interoperable net banking payments

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the implementation of an interoperable payment system for internet banking transactions.

Key Highlights:

• NPCI Bharat BillPay Ltd (NBBL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), will implement this new system.
• Currently, internet banking transactions for online merchants through Payment Aggregators (PAs) are not interoperable, requiring banks to integrate separately with each PA.
• This lack of interoperability causes delays in the receipt of payments by merchants and poses settlement risks.

Growth of UPI:

• The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has seen significant growth, with its share in digital payments reaching close to 80% in 2023.
• The volume of UPI transactions has increased dramatically from Rs 43 crore in 2017 to Rs 11,761 crore in 2023.
• UPI has evolved to include features such as offline payments through NFC, payments through feature phones, and AI-based conversational payments.