UPI Lite among key digital payment initiatives launched

Giving the potential to revolutionise the digital payments ecosystem and extend the reach of digital payments to many new users across India and abroad, three key digital payment initiatives were launched on Tuesday. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das rolled out UPI Lite, RuPay Credit Card on UPI, and Bharat BillPay Cross Border Bill Payments at the Global Fintech Fest 2022.

The initiatives were announced earlier by the central bank during previous monetary policy announcements.

UPI Lite will provide users with a convenient solution for faster and simpler low-value transactions. At present, 50 per cent of UPI payments are below ₹200. With UPI Lite enabled on BHIM App, users will be able to make small-value transactions in a near-offline mode by loading up to ₹2,000 in their on-device wallets.
Transactions up to ₹200 can be made through UPI Lite.

UPI Lite will reduce the debit load on the core banking system, thereby improving the success rate of transactions further, enhancing the user experience, and taking us one step closer to processing a billion transactions a day on the UPI platform, NPCI said in a statement.

The upper limit of a UPI Lite payment transaction will be ₹200 while the total limit of UPI Lite balance for an on-device wallet will be ₹2,000 at any point in time. Eight banks are live with the feature including Canara Bank, HDFC Bank, Indian Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India Union Bank of India and Utkarsh Small Finance Bank.