RBI MPC Decisions: The Reserve Bank of India on Friday proposed to enable the Bharat Bill Payment System to accept the cross border inward bill payments to help non-resident Indians or NRIs to make bill payments for utilities, education and other such payment on behalf of their families and parents living in India. The decision was revealed during the RBI’s Monetary Policy Meet (MPC) announcement by the central bank’s governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday, August 5.
Announcing the decision, Shaktikanta Das said that the move will greatly help senior citizens living in the country. “It is now proposed to enable the Bharat Bill Payment System to accept the cross border inward bill payments. This will enable non-resident Indians, that is NRIs, to undertake bill payments utility, education and other such payment on behalf of their families in India. This measure will greatly benefit senior citizens in particular,” said the RBI governor.
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As per the RBI’s statement on developmental policy issued later, “BBPS is currently accessible only for residents in India. To facilitate Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) undertake utility, education and other bill payments on behalf of their families in India, it is proposed to enable BBPS to accept cross-border inward payments. This will also benefit payment of bills of any biller onboarded on the BBPS platform in an interoperable manner. Necessary instructions will be issued shortly.”
Explaining the essence of the Bharat Bill Payment System, Das said, “The Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) is an interoperable platform for standardised bill payments. This has transformed the bill payment experience for users in India.” Over 20,000 billers are part of the system, and more than eight crore transactions are processed on a monthly basis, he added.
During the press conference addressed after the delivery of the MPC statement, the committee members were asked if the motive behind the decision was to reduce the margins made by the banks or targetted at increasing inflows.
To this, RBI deputy governor T Rabi Shankar replied, “This was essentially a measure of convenience for NRIs and there relatives staying her. There are a few advantages — NRIs might not have access to the full suit of over 20,000 bill collectors available on the system. All of these will be available to them. Not all NRIs have NRE accounts in India, so that also will not be necessary anymore. So, NRIs will be able to pay any bill through an interface that will be provided by exchanges or banks. The focus is on convenience and not any talk of spread or any such thing.”
“It is just a facility we have given and the objective is not really to encourage more inward remittances. It will definitely ease the making of payments for many citizens, especially for the children of senior citizens who are living abroad and are finding difficulties regarding payments. It is aimed to improve the ease of making the payment and nothing more should be seen into it,” Shaktikanta Das added.
The Bharat Bill Payment System decision would enhance remittances flows into India, Yes Securities noted. “It would also serve to expand the scope of the BBPS and enhance the BBPS-linked business that banks and fintech companies are engaged in,” it said.
What is the Bharat Bill Payment System?
As per the Bharat Bill Payment System website, BBPS is an RBI conceptualised ecosystem driven by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). “It is a one-stop ecosystem for all recurring bills providing an interoperable and accessible “Anytime Anywhere” recurring payment service to all customers across India with certainty, reliability and safety of transactions.”
Bharat Bill Payment System has multiple modes of payment and provides instant confirmation of paynment via an SMS or receipt with a Be-assured symbol. It offers repetitive payments of all type like electricity, telecom, DTH, gas, water bills, insurance premium, loan repayments, Cable, FASTag recharge, education fees, credit card, municipal taxes, mutual subscription fees, housing society etc. through a single window, as per the website. The payment modes options at BBPS are cash, cards (credit, debit and prepaid), IMPS, UPI, AEPS, internet banking and UPI, wallets.
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