Spending Boost: Soon, pay up to Rs 1,000 without entering PIN on UPI Lite

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday enhanced transaction limits for UPI123Pay and UPI Lite to encourage wider adoption of these UPI products.

Now, customers using UPI123Pay, which provides UPI functionality on feature phones, will have a per-transaction limit of Rs 10,000, up from the previous cap of Rs 5,000.

Additionally, the RBI has increased the UPI Lite wallet limits, raising the per-transaction cap from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 and the overall wallet limit from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000.

“To further encourage wider adoption of UPI and make it more inclusive, it has been decided to enhance the per-transaction limit in UPI123Pay from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said in his monetary policy speech.

The UPI Lite feature enables low-value transactions without requiring a UPI Pin. It is carried out without utilising a remitter bank’s core banking systems in real-time, according to the National Payments Corporation of India.

The enhancement in limits for UPI products comes amid increasing adoption of the flagship real-time payments system and the expanding use cases of such transactions.

The daily transactions on UPI crossed 501 million in September, the highest ever since UPI turned operational in 2016. It registered a marginal increase of 0.5 per cent in volume to 15.04 billion in September compared to 14.96 billion in August.

In value terms, Rs 68,800 crore were secured in value terms in September. The number remained almost static at Rs 20.64 trillion in September, compared to Rs 20.61 trillion in August.

NPCI has been expanding use cases for UPI, including introduction of delegated payments with UPI Circle, credit card on UPI, credit line on UPI, among others.

The apex body for payments records around Rs 10,000 crore for credit on UPI transactions, which includes payments worth Rs 200 crore for credit line on UPI.