All public sector banks expected to join BHIM platform: NPCI

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Tuesday said that it expects all public sector banks (PSBs) to join the digital payment mobile-based app Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) by the end of February.

"Since the customer base of PSBs is very large, their participation in BHIM is of crucial importance for the success of this app," A.P. Hota, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NPCI, was quoted as saying in a statement.

"We are confident that once all PSBs are part of BHIM, the user base will jump multiple times."

According to the retail payments umbrella organisation, till date 37 banks are part of the BHIM platform, including PSBs like the State Bank of India, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Union Bank of India.

"The PSBs which will go live very soon on the platform are Corporation Bank, Punjab and Sindh Bank and five associates of the State Bank of India," the statement said.

"NPCI is working with these seven banks to ensure that all of them are part of the platform by the end of this month."

Launched on December 30, 2016, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-based BHIM mobile-app has been downloaded by 13.8 million customers till January 31, 2017, of them 3.6 million customers have linked it with their bank accounts.

Earlier this month, a new version of the BHIM app 1.2 was launched, which has seven new languages apart from English and Hindi, and additional features like pay to 'Aadhaar number', SPAM report, improvised customer redressal mechanism with drop down menu.

--IANS

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