In a significant policy change, the
RBI today announced the extension of the
Bharat Bill Payment System (
BBPS) to all categories of billers who provide the recurring bill payment service to consumers.
Prepaid recharges have however been kept out of the ambit of the new regime. As per the RBI statement, detailed instructions in this regard will be issued by the end of September.
Billers can now be able to participate in the Bharat Bill Payment System mechanism on a voluntary basis, the RBI said in its policy statement.
The Bharat Bill Payment System is an inter-operable platform for repetitive bill payments. At present it covers five segments: (a) direct-to-home (DTH), (b) electricity, (c) gas, (d) telecom and (e) water bills.
"Apart from digitisation of cash-based bill payments, these segments would also benefit from the standardised bill payment experience for customers, centralised customer grievance redressal mechanism, prescribed customer convenience fee and the like," the RBI statement said.