RBI expands scope of UPI by including credit lines as funding account

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has expanded the scope of UPI by including credit lines as a funding account.

Under this facility, payments through a pre-sanctioned credit line issued by a scheduled commercial bank to individuals, with the prior consent of the individual customer, are enabled for transactions using the UPI system, the RBI said in a statement on Monday.

Banks may, as per their board-approved policy, stipulate terms and conditions for the use of such credit lines. The terms may include, among other items, credit limit, period of credit, rate of interest, etc.

Earlier, UPI-based payments crossed 10 billion monthly transactions in August for the first time, according to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

The monthly transaction count on UPI crossed 10.24 billion with a net transaction value of Rs. 15.18 trillion, the NPCI confirmed late on Thursday.

Transactions on UPI have grown by over 50 per cent (year-on-year) and August saw 6.58 billion monthly transactions.

In July, the digital payments network had registered 9.96 billion transactions. UPI crossed 1 billion monthly transactions for the first time in October 2019.