RBI extends card-less cash withdrawal facility via UPI to all banks

To encourage card-less cash withdrawal facility, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday proposed to make card-less cash withdrawal facility available across all banks and ATM networks using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

At present, the facility of card-less cash withdrawal through ATMs is limited only to a few banks. As per the central bank, card-less cash withdrawal through ATMs is a permitted mode of transaction offered by a few banks in the country on an on-us basis (for their customers at their own ATMs).

“Now you can send money from a bank account to anyone in India with a valid mobile phone number through card-less cash withdrawal. The beneficiary can then withdraw cash from the ATM without using a debit or an ATM card,” said Adhil Shetty, chief executive officer, Bankbazaar.com.

RBI governor Shaktikanta Das, while announcing the first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) statement for the financial year 2022-2023, said that in addition to enhancing ease of transactions, the absence of the need for physical card for such transactions would help prevent frauds such as card skimming, card cloning, etc.

According to the central bank, separate instructions would be issued to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), ATM networks and banks shortly.

“Under the card-less cash withdrawal facility, a user can authenticate a transaction, and this is expected to add a layer of security and authentication to the transaction. This will also prevent frauds happening due to skimming of card or card cloning,” said Dewang Neralla, chief executive officer, NTT DATA Payment Services India Ltd.

Experts feel that extending card-less cash withdrawal facility via UPI to all banks will provide a whole new level of ease of transactions across the banking system, which adds to the bouquet of digital transaction services for the economy.

Furthermore, RBI has taken steps to increase penetration of Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) payment collection for merchants.

Users of BBPS enjoy benefits such as standardized bill payment experience, centralized customer grievance redressal mechanism, prescribed customer convenience fee, etc.

As per RBI, BBPS has seen an increase in the volume of transactions as well as number of onboarded billers.

“The RBI on Friday proposed the reduction of net worth criteria for non-banking operating units from ₹100 crore to ₹25 crore. This move will further boost a large number of new players to enter the BBPS ecosystem and will thus increase the BBPS network in the country,” said Neralla.