People can now send or pay money even without internet connection through feature phones

Winning Bizness Desk

Mumbai. Now onwards, you don’t need a smartphone or internet connection to do Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments anymore. To enable thousands of feature phone users with the digital payment ecosystem in the country, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has launched UPI123Pay. With this new mode of digital payments, the individuals will be able to make direct payments to others via UPI via feature phones also. At present, the UPI payment facility is restricted to only smartphone users with internet connections.

Digital payments ecosystem flourishing

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das has said that the day was not far when transactional volumes in India would reach Rs. 100 Lakh Crore on Unified Payments Interface or UPI. Pointing to how a digital payments ecosystem had flourished in the country, Das observed that the current decade will witness a transformative shift in the digital payment ecosystem in our country. Doubling its position from a year ago, 453 Crore UPI transactions worth Rs.8.26 lakh Crore were recorded in February 2022.

Total value of transactions Rs 41 lakh Cr

The Governor was speaking at the launch of RBI’s UPI 123 PAY for feature phone users and a 24x7 helpline for digital payments called DigiSaathi. The two products are diverse yet significant dimensions of the digital payment ecosystem. “For the financial year ending March 2021, the total value of transactions done on UPI, I am told, was about Rs. 41 Lakh Crore. And for the current year, till today, I have been informed that the total volume of transactions is Rs.76 Lakh,” Das said.

Digital payments in three steps

The UPI 123 PAY launched on Tuesday will help take the digital payment ecosystem beyond those who use smartphones, payments through which have emerged as a popular mode. UPI 123 is designed for feature phone users who will also be able to now make digital payments through three steps. The RBI believes that this will allow 40 crore feature phone users in India to access the payment service. Feature phones have limited access to innovative payment products as they are basic and do not have access to the internet like smartphones.

Will help in financial inclusion

Developed indigenously, initiatives launched have the potential to deepen the digital ecosystem and financial inclusion. UPI has been developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella organisation for all digital payments in the country. “As of now, the multifaceted features of UPI are mostly available to smartphones. But we also have a large base of feature phone users in this country, who primarily come from the lower rungs of the society in economic terms. In rural areas, there are people who are not in a position to afford a smartphone, notwithstanding the fact that smartphones have become considerably cheaper,” the RBI Governor said.