Millions of people using feature phones will soon be able to make digital payments, thanks to the Reserve Bank’s proposal on Wednesday to provide UPI-based payment products for these phones. The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has become a popular method of mobile payment.
India has a sizable mobile phone user base of over 118 crore people (TRAI, October 2021). A sizable portion of this population still uses feature phones. According to Statista, over 74 crore people will own a smartphone by July 2021.
Users using feature phones, on the other hand, have restricted access to innovative payment solutions. Despite the fact that such phones have NUUP (National Unified USSD Platform) as a payment option via the short code *99#, the service has not taken off.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das believes it is critical to bring feature phone users into the mainstream of digital payments in order to increase financial penetration. Under the theme of “Retail Payments,” some innovators successfully showed their solutions for feature phone payments in the inaugural cohort of RBI Regulatory Sandbox.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das believes it is critical to bring feature phone users into the mainstream of digital payments in order to increase financial penetration. Under the theme of “Retail Payments,” some innovators successfully showed their solutions for feature phone payments in the inaugural cohort of RBI Regulatory Sandbox.
Ficci president Uday Shankar stated that the announcements addressing the simplification and strengthening of UPI will expand the reach of the digital payment system, making it even more seamless.
“We also look forward to the instructions on the use of interbank rate or alternative reference rate (ARR) as benchmarks for ECB/Trade Credit as part of the transition from LIBOR,” Shankar said.
