“The basic services of UPI will continue to remain free. Work is on with the government for incentives,” he told reporters. “But the value-added services of UPI, where the ecosystem needs some incentives to drive the adoption – whether it is mandate and credit – that’s how the benefits will be accrued and the larger benefits for merchants and consumers would come from that.”
On the payment options for consumers, he said the Reserve Bank of India is clear that the consumer should have a choice of payments.
“I will use my card as I like it and I think that is my right. There is RuPay card and other international card schemes, so the consumer will choose the choice of payments,” he said, pointing out that earlier the wallets were close loop systems.
“.. now with RBI intervention, the wallets are interoperable. So now I have PayTM working with my PhonePay wallet, I can go back and scan any QR code,” he said, adding that similarly, merchants do not have to go back and tie up with each wallet provider to give access to their customers.
Speaking at the sidelines of G20 Sherpa meeting in Kumarakom, he said cross-border real-time remittances is a G20 theme in terms of access, cost, and affordability. “The G20 is a great forum for the government and regulator. Agreements will be reached with some of the countries before the end of this calendar year so that we start the conversation for the remittances and payments,” he said.
India and Singapore linking their digital payments systems has shown that bank accounts in different countries can be interoperable, Asbe said. This was made possible when the two regulators and governments came together and defined the framework, rules and regulations, he added.The RBI had reached out to many regulators, and the Ministry of External Affairs was also reaching out through the various embassies. Asbe said this was a great architecture for the bilateral conversations for cross-border transactions such as payments and remittances.