The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor, Shaktikanta Das, launched three key digital payment initiatives at the Global Fintech Fest 2022. The three digital payment initiatives that were launched by the RBI are RuPay Credit Card on Unified Payments Interface (UPI), UPI Lite, and Bharat BillPay Cross-Border Bill Payments.

UPI Lite will provide users with a convenient solution for faster and simpler low-value transactions, the National Payments Corp Of India (NPCI) said in a statement. Currently, India has been using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for low-value payments with 50 percent of transactions through UPI below ₹200. 

Transactions in near-offline mode

Now that UPI Lite on BHIM App will be enabled, the users will be able to make small-value transactions in a near-offline mode. The launch of the UPI Lite will reduce the debit load on the core banking system, thereby improving the success rate of transactions further, enhancing the user experience, and taking us one step closer to processing a billion transactions a day on the UPI platform.

Total limit on UPI Lite

The upper limit of a UPI Lite payment transaction will be ₹200. The total limit of the UPI Lite digital payment mode on the wallet on a device would be ₹2,000 at any point in time. Customers of these eight banks would be able to use UPI Lite digital payment system. These are Canara Bank, HDFC Bank, Indian Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India (SBI), Union Bank of India, and Utkarsh Small Finance Bank.

RuPay Credit Card on UPI and Bharat BillPay Cross-Border Bill Payments was also launched which are likely to make bill payments easier for people residing out of India but also maintaining a house in India.

RBI wants fintech operators to follow the rules of game, says Guv Shaktikanta Das

Warning against mushrooming of lending apps and their usurious recovery prices, the Reserve Bank said it is not interested in penalizing operators or stifling innovation but wants them to follow the rules of the game, governor Shaktikanta Das said on Tuesday. Addressing the third edition of the global fintech summit here this evening, he said the intention of the central bank is not to penalize or stifle anyone but to ensure that everyone follows traffic rules.

The statement assumes importance in the wake of the recent incidences wherein a few people who borrowed through these apps have been forced to commit suicide and the last week's incidence of a young pregnant woman being mowed down by the recovery agents of Mahindra Finance which financed her father's tractor in Bihar.

Since the past two years, when the negative loan app incidents began to surface the central bank had made many changes in the rule book, including mandating the loan apps to upfront disclose on whose NBFC's or bank's behalf the money was being disbursed.

Why the RBI has not introduced the first loss default guarantee in the recently introduced guidelines for the lending apps, the governor said, our intention is not to penalize anybody or stifle anyone else activity. All that we are saying is that please follow the traffic rules, Das said.

"The Reserve Bank will continue to be supportive of it (digital lending) and will welcome it. We will, in fact, go two steps forward to discuss with you if you just take one step forward. But having said that, these innovations also must be responsible and should enhance the efficiency and resiliency of the financial system while benefiting the consumer.

"Robust internal product and service assurance framework together with fair and transparent governance will go a long way to safeguard the interest of customers and ensure the long-term sustainability of fintech entities themselves," Das said.