RBI expands scope of Bharat Bill Payment System

BBPS is an interoperable platform that enables a customer to pay bills such as telephone, water, gas, direct-to-home (DTH) and electricity at a single location—electronic or physical. With the expansion of the scope of the payment facility, other recurring payments such as school fees, municipal taxes, insurance premiums can also be paid via BBPS.

“As announced in...the Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies released with the Third Bimonthly Monetary Policy Statement 2019-20 of August 07, 2019, it has been decided to expand the scope and coverage of BBPS to include all categories of billers who raise recurring bills (except prepaid recharges) as eligible participants, on a voluntary basis," the banking regulator said in a notification on Monday night.

BBPS payments can be made using cash, cheques as well as through digital methods such as internet banking, debit, credit card, among others. Bill aggregators and banks function as operating units and carry out these payment transactions for customers.

“In order to leverage the advantages of the BBPS and harness its full potential, it has been decided to permit all categories of billers (except prepaid recharges) who provide for recurring bill payments to participate in BBPS on a voluntary basis," the RBI had said on August 7, adding detailed instructions will be issued by the end of September.

“Apart from digitization of cash-based bill payments, these segments would also benefit from the standardized bill payment experience for customers, centralized customer grievance redressal mechanism, prescribed customer convenience fee and the like," it said.