NPCI begins pilot for Bharat Bill Payment System

BBPS to link all major billers with all their consumers, simplifying bill presentment and bill payments electronically

National Payments Corporation of India has launched its pilot project for the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS).

"BBPS, in due course of time would link all major billers in the country with all their consumers which will simplify bill presentment and bill payments electronically. Currently the volume of bills being paid by cash is so large that even if 25 percent of the bills get paid electronically, impact would be visibly enormous," said A P Hota, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, NPCI.

BBPS is the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mandated system which will provide interoperable bill payment services to customers. This will allow customers to pay bill online at their own convenience.

At present, utility bills such as electricity, water, gas, telephone and Direct-to-Home (DTH). Going ahead NPCI also wants to include school fees, municipal taxes etc.

So far 62 entities have received in-principle approval from RBI to function as operating units for BBPS. Out of this 52 are banking entities and 10 are non-banking entities such as wallet players etc.

This comes less than a week after the Unified Payments Interface that has made money transfer as simple as sending text messages was launched by NPCI.