In one of the most interesting moves, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released new guidelines on how payments work within mobile wallets. In a move aimed at promoting digital transactions, the RBI has laid out new norms which if the mobile wallet services implements will allow users to send or receive money from one wallet to another. For the unaware, currently, a mobile wallet does not allow customers to send or receive money from a wallet run by another company. But soon it's going to change according to the new norms. Some of the popular mobile wallet services in the country are Paytm, Oxigen, MobiKwik and so on.
RBI Issues New Guidelines to Provide Payments Between Mobile Wallets
As per the road-map laid down in 2017, interoperability of all KYC-compliant Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) was to be enabled in three phases - interoperability of PPIs issued in the form of wallets through Unified Payments Interface (UPI), interoperability between wallets and bank accounts through UPI, and interoperability for PPIs issued in the form of cards through card networks.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued consolidated guidelines for enabling all phases "in order to prepare better for implementation of interoperability". Interoperability is the technical compatibility that enables a payment system to be used in conjunction with other payment systems.
Interoperability allows PPI issuers, system providers and system participants in different systems to undertake, clear and settle payment transactions across systems without participating in multiple systems.
MobiKwik, Oxigen, Paytm, ItzCash, and Ola Money are some of the popular mobile wallets in the country.
Paytm Welcomes the Move from RBI
Welcoming the RBI's guidelines, Navin Surya, Chairman, Fintech Convergence Council said this is a very progressive move for non-bank players and huge foundations to reach under-banked and unbanked with equally powerful payment product in a league of debit/credit cards. "Also now UPI would be accessible to large masses even those who are not banked or are under-banked," he said.
Paytm COO Kiran Vasireddy said, It is a great step for the payments ecosystem in India. With these set of guidelines, the PPI ecosystem will become more stronger.
