President concludes lucky draw scheme with 100th Mega Draw
Hon’ble President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee picked up the lucky winners from the 100th mega draw for Lucky Grahak Yojana and Lucky Vyapaar Yojana at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on April 9, 2017. He congratulated those who are contributing towards achieving the mission of making India a less-cash society. He articulated that the launch of Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) has demystified the digital payments and brought it within the grasp of every citizen. President urged all citizens to extend their unstinted support to the mission of a less-cash India.
PM Modi launches AePS enabled BHIM App
Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi launched an Aadhaar enabled BHIM App for merchants in Nagpur on April 14, 2017. At the launch ceremony, PM Modi articulated that BHIM App’s success will be a global case study in the future. Customers will be able to transact digitally by simply using their fingerprint for authentication through BHIM Aadhaar platform. One does not require a smartphone, internet or cards to make seamless digital transactions through BHIM Aadhaar. In his speech, PM Modi mentioned that the time is not far when premise-less and paperless banking will become a part of people’s lives.
BHIM Aadhaar works on NPCI’s existing product - Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS). It allows the customer to make purchases using their Aadhaar number linked with their bank account. BHIM Aadhaar would be applicable for retail merchants (individuals and sole proprietors) only and not for corporate merchants.
NPCI has extended support to the banks mentioned below for BHIM Aadhaar on-boarding as on April 14:
- Public Sector Banks and Private Banks
Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Canara Bank, Central Bank of India, City Union Bank (Issuer), Corporation Bank, Dena Bank, Federal Bank (ONUS), HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IDFC Bank, Indian Bank, IndusInd Bank (Acquirer), Indian Overseas Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank, Punjab & Sind Bank, State Bank of India, South Indian Bank (Issuer), Syndicate Bank, UCO Bank, Union Bank of India, United Bank of India and Vijaya Bank.
- Regional Rural Banks (all are issuers)
Kerala Gramin Bank and Pragathi Krishna Gramin Bank sponsored by Canara Bank, Chaitanya Godavari Gramin Bank sponsored by Andhra Bank, Baroda Gujarat Gramin Bank sponsored by Bank of Baroda, Andhra Pradesh Gramin Vikas Bank sponsored by State Bank of India.
NPCI’s BHIM App hits Google PlayStore and iOS with updated version
Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM), the common platform across the nation for making simple, easy and quick payment transactions using Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is now available on Google Play Store and iOS with an updated version
1.3. Key features of the latest version (BHIM 1.3) are:
Three new languages: Marathi, Punjabi and Assamese have been added to BHIM application. Total number of languages in BHIM app now stands at 12.
Use phone contacts to send money: Customers can now browse the contact list of their phones to select beneficiaries for sending money. This is applicable to mobile numbers of users who are already registered with BHIM / *99#.
Enhanced QR feature: With the new version, users can browse QR code which is saved in their mobile phones to Scan and Pay. Apart from these key updates, upgraded BHIM app has made possible blocking / un-blocking to prevent unknown collect requests.
Karbonn brings India’s first smartphone ‘K9 Kavach 4G’ integrated with BHIM
Karbonn Mobiles has partnered with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to become the first Indian smartphone brand to integrate BHIM App (Bharat Interface for Money) in its latest device ‘K9 Kavach 4G.’ With the launch of BHIM enabled smartphone, Karbonn Mobiles is contributing towards Government of India’s ‘Digital India’ initiative and creating a less-cash economy in a big way with this new phone. The smartphone has been designed with a unique security feature to offer its consumers a completely safe and secured smartphone environment for all digital banking transactions and information. This strategic partnership is a significant step towards providing acceptance tools for facilitating digital payments in India.
Equitas Bank launched SelfeFASTag
Equitas Small Finance Bank announced the launch of self-service FASTags for vehicles to access easy toll collection at highways through an RFID tag. The newly launched Selfe-FASTag will allow users to apply for a vehicle FASTag online and achieve freedom from long queues at toll collection booths. The bank has already issued 5000 tags to vehicle owners and aims to issue 1 lakh tags by March FY18. Equitas Small Finance Bank has also gone live with all digital payment instruments such as United Payments Interface (UPI), Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) and Aadhaar enabled payment systems (AEPS).
NPCI’s BHIM App launches educational videos for new customers
The new customers of National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) application will now be greeted with educational videos on BHIM installation process. An SMS with a video link bit.ly/2uIGgFJ will be sent to the customer who downloads the app for seamless onboarding. These videos are created to assist new customers with initial steps of using the app, like verifying their registered SIM card, generating BHIM App’s passcode, selecting their bank, generating UPI PIN for making transactions etc.
UPI’s growing merchant acceptance
UPI added 45 new merchants to the platform in July and their industry wise break up is given below:
• Ecommerce – 17
• Electricity – 9
• Healthcare & Hospitality – 4
• Retail & FMCG – 7
• Travel – 6
• Mutual Fund – 2
United Payments Interface (UPI) has achieved 10 million transactions in the month of June 2017 with 52 banks live on the service platform. Growing acceptance among both end users and banks as well as addition of new merchants going live on the UPI platform is providing support to the proliferation of the product across geographies.
TJSB Sahakari Bank to act as Customer BBPOU
TJSB Sahakari Bank announced the launch of their BBPS AI with Pay Point through a formal ceremony on 4th July 2017. Mr. A.R. Ramesh (Chief Project Officer) presided the event as chief guest, attended by Mr. Sunil PrabhakarSathe, MD & CEO-TJSB Bank and Mr.SwapnilJambhale, DGM-TJSB Bank. Pay Point India’s solution provides consumers a quick and easy, single stop access to a wide array of services. Consumers can purchase or make payments for Utilities, Travel, Cinema, DTH / Mobile Recharge, Banking & Financial services, etc. in their neighbourhood. TJSB bank will now act as a COU (Customer BBPOU) for Pay Point.