Shaktikanta Das, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), announced on Wednesday that the RBI has decided to add a new feature to its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform where the delivery of services or goods occurs later, such as e-commerce purchases, hotel bookings, or equity investments.
Through the ‘single-block-and-multiple debits’ feature on the UPI platform, the RBI Governor said that customers will have more trust while carrying out such transactions. By introducing single-block-and-multiple-debits functionality, Shaktikanta Das said this facility will enable a customer to block funds in his/her account for specific purposes, which can be debited whenever needed.
“It has…been decided to introduce a single-block-and-multiple-debits functionality in UPI, which will significantly enhance the ease of making payments in e-commerce space and towards investments in securities,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said after announcing the bi-monthly policy review.
According to Governor Shaktikanta Das’s address on the RBI website, this capability would allow customers to restrict funds in their accounts for certain uses, which may then be debited when needed. This would greatly simplify payments for securities investments, particularly those made through the Retail Direct platform and e-commerce transactions.
In other news, the Governor stated that the RBI was broadening the scope of the Bharat Bill Payment System.
He stated that the BBPS has been rapidly developing since its inception in 2017, and that it presently supports recurring bill payments for merchants and utilities but not non-recurring invoices.
The RBI Governor also stated that it does not cater to bill payments or collections for individuals, such as payment of fees for professional services, education fees, tax payments, and rent collections, among others, even if they are recurring in nature.
As a result, he stated that the scope of BBPS is being expanded to include all types of payments and collections, both recurring and non-recurring, as well as all types of billers.
“This will make the BBPS platform accessible to a wider set of individuals and businesses which can benefit from the transparent payments experience, faster access to funds and improved efficiency,” he added.
