The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday launched a new digital payment mode for feature phones called UPI123Pay through which people will be able to make carry out UPI transactions even without a smartphone and an internet connection.
UPI on feature phones will help people in rural areas who cannot afford a smartphone to participate in UPI transactions, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said.
There are an estimated 40 crore feature phone users in the country.
"This current decade will witness a transformative shift in digital payments ecosystem in the country," he said.
UPI 123Pay will allow customers to use feature phones for almost all transactions barring scan and pay even without an internet connection. Customers will have to link their bank account with feature phones to use this facility.
Das said, as of now, the multifaceted features of UPI are mostly available only on smartphones, which excludes people from the lower rung of the society from an economic perspective, especially in the rural areas, from accessing the popular service, even though the smartphone prices are going down.
"The UPI volumes have touched to Rs 76 lakh crore in FY22 so far, as against Rs 41 lakh crore in FY21, the day is not far when the overall volumes will touch Rs 100 lakh crore," the RBI governor said.
A 24x7 helpline called 'Digisaathi' for digital payments was also launched by Das, which will assist the callers/users with all their queries on digital payments via website and chatbot.
