In yet another step to make India a cashless economy, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday announced that it is expanding the scope of the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) to bring under its ambit all repetitive bill payments, except prepaid recharges.
This essentially means that the facility can now be used to pay any recurring payment like monthly school fees, insurance premiums, municipal taxes, maintenance charges at housing societies, mutual fund contributions or even EMIs. Till now, the Bharat Bill Payment System used to cater to just five segments — direct to home (DTH), electricity, gas, telecom and water.
But why should consumers opt for Bharat Bill Payment System to pay their bills? And how would it really benefit the other stakeholders? To understand that, let’s take a brief look at exactly how the system works.
The Bharat Bill Payment System was launched by the National Payment Corporation of India on 31 August 2016 under the recommendation of RBI executive director G. Padmanabhan committee. The platform allows customers across the country to use one single website or outlet to pay all their bills with reliability and safety of transactions. According to a report, a total of 338 million transactions took place on the Bharat Bill Payment System network over the course of 2018-19.
The payment service is provided to customers through a network of agents, enabling multiple payment modes, including cash, and an instant confirmation of payment is provided after the transaction. It even has a standardized system to handle grievances for both online and offline transactions.
Payment is allowed in cash at authorized kiosks, retail shops and bank branches, or digitally through debit card, credit card, net banking, UPI, mobile wallets, at websites and apps of banks and non-bank entities etc.
To enjoy Bharat Bill Payment Services, a customer has to complete a one-time registration process. Registration can be done by visiting any authorized retail outlet or the official website and providing personal details like name, address, email, mobile number and ID proof. After the registration, a customer ID will be issued which can be used for future transactions.
With the Bharat Bill Payment System, customers now no longer need to visit individual billing companies’ website or outlets to pay their bills. The platform would also completely kill the queues outside the billing windows in India.
Moreover, transactions made through the platform are transparent, safe and saves time, benefitting not just citizens, but also helping economy by curbing black money and corruption.
For service providers, the biggest benefit is that they would get instant payments and need not maintain bill collection centres for themselves, thereby helping in cutting costs.
So, given the convenience and safety of the platform, one can safely assume that the Bharat Bill Payment System is going to change the way India pay its bills.
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