Reserve Bank of India launches UPI123Pay

Tags: Economy/Finance Popular

To make digital payment more accessible to the people, the Reserve Bank of India has launched UPI123Pay for people who do not have a smartphone .

• UPI 123 Pay has been designed to make Unified Payment Interface (UPI) digital payment system  more  user friendly  through feature phones . 

• Feature phones are normal phones which do not have internet connection and in India around 40 crore people use feature phones .

• UPI123Pay includes four distinct options :

App-based Functionality:

An app would be installed on the feature phone through which several UPI functions, available on smartphones, will also be available on feature phones.

Missed Call: 

This will allow feature phone users to access their bank account and perform routine transactions such as receiving, transferring funds, regular purchases, bill payments, etc., by giving a missed call on the number displayed at the merchant outlet. The customer will receive an incoming call to authenticate the transaction by entering UPI PIN (Personal Identification Number).

Interactive Voice Response (IVR): 

UPI payment through pre-defined IVR numbers would require users to initiate a secured call from their feature phones to a predetermined number and complete UPI on-boarding formalities to be able to start making financial transactions without internet connection.

Proximity Sound-based Payments: 

This uses sound waves to enable contactless, offline, and proximity data communication on any device.

• This is not the first time that UPI facilities are being made available through a feature phone . UPI facility can be used through a Unstructured Supplementary Service Data(USSD) service. 

• Under this service the user has to dial *99# to receive a set of  menus before initiating instructions. It was complicated and difficult to use and the new UPI123Pay is more easy to use .

UPI (Unified Payment Interface)

• UPI was launched by NPCI(National Payment Corporation of India ) in 2016 . It provides an instant fund transfer system from one bank account to another through a mobile phone .

• It is operational 24x7 and 365 days.

• The maximum fund transfer limit is Rs 2 lakh per transaction.

Important for Exam 

UPI :Unified Payment Interface 

USSD: Unstructured Supplementary Service Data

Governor of RBI: Shaktikanta Das 

Headquarter of RBI: Mumbai.