BHIM–UPI in Bhutan

BHIM–UPI in Bhutan

Part of: GS Prelims and GS-II -International Relations

In news Union Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs along with the Finance Minister of Bhutan jointly launched BHIM–UPI in Bhutan.

• India and Bhutan have already enabled interoperability in acceptance of Rupay cards in each other’s countries.

Benefits 

• Smooth connectivity between two countries will benefit a large number of tourists and businessmen from India who travel to Bhutan each year. 
• This will enhance the ease of living and ease of travelling through cashless transactions.

Do you know?

• Bhutan is the first country to adopt UPI standards for its QR deployment, and the first country in our immediate neighbourhood to accept mobile based payments through the BHIM App.

What is Unified Payments Interface (UPI)?

• UPI is a payment system. launched in April 2016 by National Payments Corporation of India(NPCI), that allows money transfer between any two bank accounts by using a smartphone.
• UPI allows a customer to pay directly from a bank account to different merchants, both online and offline, without the hassle of typing credit card details, IFSC code, or net banking/wallet passwords.
• It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience.
• More than 100 million UPI QRs have been created in the last 5 years 
• BHIM UPI in 2020-21 has processed 22 billion transactions worth Rs 41 lakh crore.

What is National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)?

• It is an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India.
• It is an initiative of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.
• It has been incorporated as a “Not for Profit” Company under the provisions of Section 25 of Companies Act 1956 (now Section 8 of Companies Act 2013).
• In 2016 the shareholding was broad-based to 56 member banks to include more banks representing all sectors.
• Along with UPI, Other systems include National Automated Clearing House (NACH), Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS), Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS), RuPay, FASTag etc.

News Source: PIB