New Delhi. In order to further promote the increasing popularity of UPI, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has proposed to increase the limit of UPI Lite wallet from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 and per transaction limit to Rs 1,000. Presenting the bi-monthly monetary policy review, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said that with continuous innovation and acceptance, UPI (Unified Payment Interface) has changed the financial landscape of the country by making digital payments easy and inclusive.
He said, “To further encourage its use and make it more inclusive, it has been proposed to increase the per transaction limit in UPI 123 Pay from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000.” Also, it has been decided to increase the limit of UPI wallet from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 and the per transaction limit to Rs 1,000. Currently the UPI Lite wallet limit is Rs 2,000 per transaction and Rs 500 per transaction.
According to the RBI statement, suitable amendments will be made in the Reserve Bank’s framework related to UPI Lite to facilitate small value payments through offline digital means. Apart from this, the facility of ‘UPI 123 Pay’ will now be available in 12 languages. It was introduced in March 2022, with the aim of providing UPI facilities to ‘feature-phone’ users.
With this, NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) and RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement System) will facilitate verification of account holder’s name like UPI and IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) before finalizing the fund transfer. Currently, UPI and IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) allow the sender to verify the name of the recipient (beneficiary) before sending money.
Das said, “Now sending the amount under RTGS and NEFT will facilitate verification of the name of the beneficiary. “This will reduce the possibility of money going to the wrong person and fraud.” RBI said that guidelines in this regard will be issued soon.
The central bank will also create a ‘Reserve Bank Climate Risk Information System’ (RB-CRIS) in view of climate change emerging as one of the significant risks to the financial system. Das said it is important for regulated entities to conduct climate risk assessments to ensure the stability of their books and financial systems.
He said such assessments require high-quality data on local climate scenarios, climate projections and emissions, among other things. There are various gaps in the available climate data, such as fragmented and diverse sources, different formats, frequencies and units. Das said that to bridge these gaps, the Reserve Bank proposes to create a two-part data repository ‘RB-CRIS’.
The first part is a web-based directory, which will list various data sources (meteorological, geospatial, etc.), which will be publicly available on the RBI website. The second part will be a data platform that will include datasets (data processed in standardized formats). Access to this data platform will be made available only to regulated entities in a phased manner.