Latest news with #PaymentsInfrastructureDevelopmentFund


Mint
28-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
India logs 65K digital payments worth ₹12K trillion in 6 years, says govt
New Delhi: India logged over 65,000 crore digital payment transactions worth ₹ 12,000 trillion in the last six fiscal years—FY19 to FY25—marking a surge in the technology's adoption across the country, including small towns and rural areas, minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary said on Monday. This has helped reduce cash dependency in the economy and increase formal economic participation. In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Choudhary said the government has been closely working with various stakeholders, including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), fintechs, banks, and state governments to boost adoption of digital payments across the country. The RBI had set up a Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) in 2021 to encourage deployment of digital payments acceptance infrastructure in small towns and cities and remote parts, including the northeastern states and Jammu & Kashmir, the minister said. As on May 31, around 4.77 crore digital touch-points had been deployed through the PIDF. The RBI has developed the Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) to measure the extent of digitization of payments across the country. The index, published semi-annually, pegs March 2018 as the base period (index = 100). As per the latest release, the RBI-DPI was at 465.33 for September 2024, reflecting continued growth in digital payment adoption, infrastructure, and performance across the country, the minister said. The government, the RBI and NPCI have taken various initiatives to support small businesses and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to facilitate the adoption of digital payment systems to expand their customer base and improve efficiency, he said. These include an incentive scheme for promotion of low-value BHIM-UPI transactions for small merchants, Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) guidelines that allow MSMEs to get their invoices discounted on its platform at competitive rates, and the rationalization of merchant discount rate (MDR) for debit card transactions. The growing adoption of digital payments has revolutionized access to financial services, particularly for the underserved and unserved communities. By enabling seamless, traceable transactions through platforms such as unified payments interface (UPI), digital payments have created a robust financial footprint for individuals and businesses, Choudhary said. These footprints also serve as alternative data points for financial institutions, allowing them to assess the creditworthiness of customers even in the absence of traditional documentation, he said. More people are thus able to access formal credit channels and enter the financial ecosystem.
&w=3840&q=100)

Business Standard
28-07-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Digital payments cross ₹65,000 cr in volume, ₹12,000 tn in value in 6 yrs
Indian digital payment landscape witnessed over 65,000 crore transactions amounting to more than ₹12,000 lakh crore in the past six financial years, Parliament was informed on Monday. The government has been closely working with different stakeholders, including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), fintechs, banks and state governments, to increase the adoption rates of digital payments in the country including in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha. RBI has set up a Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) in 2021 to encourage deployment of digital payments acceptance infrastructure in tier-3 to 6 cities, North-Eastern States and Jammu & Kashmir, he said. As on May 31, 2025, around 4.77 crore digital touch points have been deployed through PIDF, he said. Replying to another question, Chaudhary said, the New Digital Credit Assessment Model for MSMEs was announced in the Union Budget 2024-25. "The model envisioned that the public sector banks (PSBs) will build their in-house capability to assess MSMEs for credit, instead of relying on external assessment. PSBs would develop a new credit assessment model, based on the scoring of digital footprints of MSMEs in the economy," he said. Subsequently, the Union finance minister had launched the New Credit Assessment Model for MSMEs on March 6, 2025. The model leverages the digitally fetched and verifiable data and devises automated journeys for MSME loan appraisal using objective decisioning for all loan applications and model-based limit assessment for both Existing to Bank (ETB) as well as New to Bank (NTB) MSME borrowers, he said. The digital footprints used by the model may include Pan authentication using NSDL, mobile and email verification using OTP, Application Programming Interface (API), fetching of GST data through service providers, bank statement analysis using account aggregator, ITR upload and verification, API-enabled commercial and consumer bureau fetch and due diligence using Credit Information Companies (CICs), fraud checks, through APIs, among others, he said. The model is live with all banks with different loan amount threshold, he said, adding, a total of 98,995 MSME loan applications have been sanctioned by the PSBs under New Credit Assessment Model between April 1 and July 15, 2025. In reply to another question, he said, India's foreign exchange reserves continue to be at comfortable levels, standing at $668.3 billion as of March 2025, providing an import cover of about 11 months and covering 90.8 per cent of external debt outstanding. The ratio of short-term debt (original maturity) to reserves stood at 20.1 per cent, he said, adding, the latest position of forex reserves is $696.7 billion as of July 11, 2025. Further, he said, various measures have been taken by the RBI to enhance foreign exchange inflows into the country by removing short-term investment and concentration limits for FPIs in corporate debt, introducing Special Non-Resident Rupee accounts for non-residents with business interest in India to facilitate cross-border transactions; raising interest rate ceiling on FCNR(B) deposits till March 2025 to incentivise deposits etc. The foreign exchange reserves are invested with the objective of safety, liquidity, and returns and are invested in approved sovereign and sovereign-guaranteed investments only, he said. Replying to another question, Chaudhary said Indian Banks' Association (IBA) has submitted a proposal to declare all Saturdays as banking holiday. "In regard to the Saturdays being public holiday, subsequent to 10th Bipartite settlement/7th Joint note signed between IBA and Workmen Unions/Officer Associations, Government, in exercise of powe₹conferred by section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, vide notification dated August 28, 2025, had declared the second and the fourth Saturdays of every month as public holiday for banks in India," he said. He further said that PSBs are board governed commercial entities and the requirement of manpower in each PSB is determined by the respective PSB keeping in view various factors. Appointment of office₹and staff is done accordingly by the PSBs and it varies from year to year based on their requirements, he said. As per inputs received from PSBs, he said as on March 31, 2025, 96 per cent staff are in position against their business requirement. The small proportion of gap is attributable to attrition on account of superannuation and other usual facto₹including unplanned exits, he added. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

The Hindu
12-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
BCRC seeks remuneration review of Bank Mitras
Business Correspondent Resource Council (BCRC), the industry body representing Bank Mitras, has appealed to the Parliamentary Committee on Finance to review the remuneration of Bank Mitras and sought subsidy on their infrastructure cost. Recently office bearers of BCRC met Bhartruhari Mahtab, Chairperson, Parliamentary Committee on Finance and made a representation. Since Bank Mitras' remuneration is by way of commissions from banks, and the rates for which were set in 2014 and have not been revised since then, a review has been sought. 'The ATM interoperability charges have been recently revised to ₹19, on similar lines, commission structure for AePS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) which is used in rural banking, may also be revised,' the BCRC said in the submission. It has urged that a remuneration review committee comprising the Department of Financial Services, financial institutions, NPCI & industry bodies may be set up for a review. Considering Bank Mitras face significant expenses for essential technology upgrades like for laptops, passbook printers and biometric devices, the BCRC has asked the Commission to subsidise supporting infrastructure costs through RBI's Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF). 'The PIDF is designed to subsidise payment infrastructure in underserved areas, direct PIDF subsidies would be crucial to offset these costs,' it said. Towards systemic strengthening, it has urged for the need for clear accountability guidelines to delineate roles of banks & Bank Mitras in cases of fraud, 'so that genuine agents are not penalised for systemic failures.'