RBI to push payment systems innovations with soft touch regulations: RBI Governor
In an era of digitalization, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Sanjay Malhotra has listed benefits and efforts taken by the Reserve Bank to boost digital payments across the country, saying that ‘We will continue to encourage innovation in payments, as also generally, while being mindful of risks and taking appropriate measures to mitigate them. We will promote innovation to facilitate payment systems that are fast, safe, secure, accessible and resilient.'
He further said ‘We have adopted a soft-touch approach to regulating the payments ecosystem and FinTechs. Through these regulations, the Reserve Bank attempts to balance these divergent set of expectations. Our approach has been to put in place regulatory guardrails within which all stakeholders are free to operate. We will continue to encourage innovation while promoting safety and security through soft-touch regulations.’
Meanwhile, over the years, the Reserve Bank has supported various digital payment products. This has enhanced choice and convenience to the customers. It started with ECS (electronic clearing service). It then introduced NEFT, RTGS, IMPS, NACH (this is for e-mandates, it has replaced ECS), AePS, UPI, NETC, etc. It has introduced many new features on UPI and expanded its scope to cater to different needs of customers. These include UPI123Pay, UPI Lite, linking RuPay credit cards to UPI, processing payment mandates with single-block-and-multiple-debits, enabling Credit Lines for UPI, linking PPIs with UPI, etc.
