Govt. announces rewards for boosting PoS, e-commerce via Rupay, and BHIM

A programme to reward banks for boosting point-of-sale (PoS) and online purchases made using RuPay debit cards, as well as small-volume payments made to businesses utilising the BHIM-UPI network, has been announced by the government.

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The government has announced a programme to reward banks for boosting point-of-sale and online purchases made with RuPay debit cards as well as small-volume payments made to retailers via the BHIM-UPI network.

According to a notification posted by the Ministry of Electronics and IT on Monday, this is part of a plan announced in the Union Budget for 2022–2023 to increase the nation’s use of digital transactions.

For the financial year 2022–2023, the government launched a programme to reward acquiring banks by paying a percentage of the value of RuPay debit card transactions and low-value BHIM–UPI transactions up to INR 2,000 (Person-to-Merchant–P2M).

“This incentive scheme will promote digital payments by incentivising banks to build a robust digital payments ecosystem and to promote RuPay debit cards and BHIM-UPI as low-cost digital payments mode across all sectors and segments of population. In line with the Budget announcement, the scheme will also promote UPI Lite and UPI 123PAY as economical and user-friendly digital payments solutions,” according to the notification.

The acquiring bank would receive a 0.4% incentive for low volume transactions using RuPay debit cards at point-of-sale (PoS) and through e-commerce, with a ceiling of Rs 100. This incentive is apart from any industry-related programmes.