RBI Monetary Policy Outcome: UPI-based payment product for feature phone users to launch soon

RBI Monetary Policy December 2021: RBI on Wednesday kept repo rate and reverse repo rate unchanged at 4 per cent and 3.35 per cent, respectively. Also, it maintained its accommodative stance to ensure better economic recovery.  

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das while addressing on review by Monetary Policy Committee, made an important announcement on "UPI for Feature Phone Users."

As per RBI statement, "It is proposed to launch a UPI-based payment product for feature phone users. Further details will be announced shortly."

"India has a large mobile phone consumer base of about 118 crore mobile users (TRAI, October 2021)1 of which about 74 crore (Statista, July 2021) have smart phones indicating that there is a significant number of feature phone users in the country2. Feature phone users have limited access to innovative payment products. Although feature phones have NUUP (National Unified USSD Platform) as an option for availing basic payment services using the short code of *99#, the same has not picked up," the RBI statement said.

FULL TEXT:

"To deepen financial penetration, it is important to bring feature phone users into the mainstream digital payments. In the first cohort of RBI Regulatory Sandbox, some innovators had successfully demonstrated their solutions for feature phone payments, under the theme of ‘Retail Payments’. These products, coupled with other complimentary solutions, will facilitate UPI-based digital payment solutions on feature phones to promote wider digitisation. It is proposed to launch a UPI-based payment product for feature phone users. Further details will be announced shortly," the statement added.