Union Cabinet approves Rs 2,600 crore scheme to promote RuPay debit cards and UPI

New Delhi, Jan 12: To boost digital payments in the country, the Union Cabinet Wednesday approved a Rs 2,600 crore scheme to promote RuPay debit cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions. Under the scheme, banks would be given financial incentives for promoting Point of Sale (PoS) and e-commerce transactions using RuPay and UPI in the current financial year (2022-23).

 

 

In a statement, the government said the scheme would help build a robust digital payment ecosystem and promote UPI Lite and UPI 123PAY as economical and user-friendly digital payment solutions in line with the objective of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’.

 

 

 

The government said the digital payment transactions, which witnessed remarkable growth over the years, facilitated the functioning of businesses, including small merchants, and helped in maintaining social distancing during the Covid-19 crisis. Citing numbers, the Centre said total digital payments transactions registered a year-on-year growth of 59 percent, rising from 5,554 crores in FY2020-21 to 8,840 crores in FY2021-22. BHIM-UPI transactions registered a year-on-year increase of 106 percent, rising from 2,233 crores in FY2020-21 to 4,597 crores in FY2021-22.

 

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The current year’s scheme has been formulated in compliance with the 2022-23 Union Budget announcement in which Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated the government’s intent to continue the financial support for digital payments. In the financial year 2021-22 too, the government approved an incentive scheme in compliance with the budget announcement of FY2021-22 to give a further boost to digital transactions.