Incentive scheme for promotion of RuPay Debit Cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions (Person to Merchant) for financial year 2023-24.

Incentive scheme for promotion of RuPay Debit Cards andBHIM-UPI transactions (Person to Merchant) for financial year 2023-24.

No 9/27/2023 – FI (Part)1.-The Government is taking various initiatives to promote digital payments.Over past few years, digital payment transactions have witnessed tremendous growth across the country with the number of transactions growing from 2,071 Crore in financial year 2017-18 to 13,462 Crore in financial year 2022-23.

2. Although there has been an unprecedented growth in digital payments over the past few years, therepotential for further growth. It is, therefore, important to promote the adoption of digital payments, targeting untappedmarkets or segments or sectors.

3. In compliance with the Budget announcement (financial year 2023-24) and to give further boost to digitaltransactions in the country, it has been decided by the Government to incentivise the Banks and other payment systemoperators and app providers for promoting RuPay Debit Cards transactions and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions(upto 2,000) (Person-to-Merchant- P2M), for financial year 2023-24. The admissible incentive is to be calculated asper the transaction value processed on quarterly basis.

4. This incentive scheme will promote digital payments by incentivising banks and other payment system operators to build a robust digital payments ecosystem and to promote RuPay Debit Cards and BHIM-UPI as low-cost digital payments mode across all sectors and segments of population. In line with various digital initiatives under Atmanirbhar Bharat; the scheme will also promote transactions using indigenously-developed modes of digitalpayments, namely, BHIM-UPI Lite or BHIM-UPI LiteX, “UPI Conversational Payments- Hello! UPI” and BHIMUPI 123PAY as economical and user-friendly digital payments solutions.

5. The Government approved the proposal to continue the “Incentive scheme for promotion of RuPay DebitCards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions (Person to Merchant)”, for a period of one year and at a financial outlay of 3,500 Crore. This will provide financial incentive to acquiring banks as per the incentive rates and otherdetails given below: