UPI payments: Now, customers can block funds in their accounts

BENGALURU: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will introduce single-block and multiple-debits functionality in the most popular retail payments system -unified payments interface (UPI). With this, customers can block funds in their accounts for specific purposes and the amount will be debited whenever needed.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said this will significantly enhance the ease of making payments for investments in securities including through the Retail Direct platform as well as e-commerce transactions.

At present, there is only single-block and single-debit transactions functionality in the UPI. A recent report by PayNearby said that the UPI transactions saw a whopping 650 per cent and 500 per cent increase in value and volume across PayNearby retail counters, representing the growing adoption of UPI beyond Tier II regions in the country.

In Q32022, UPI clocked over 19.65 billion transactions in volume and Rs 32.5 lakh crore in terms of value. 

 After the three-day Monetary Policy Committee(MPC) meeting, the RBI governor also informed that the scope of the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) is being enhanced to include all categories of payments and collections, both recurring and non-recurring, and for all category of billers (businesses and individuals).

"This will make the BBPS platform accessible to a wider set of individuals and businesses who can benefit from the transparent payments experience, faster access to funds and improved efficiency," he said.

The BBPS, which was launched in 2017, currently handles only recurring bill payments for merchants and utilities.