The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released its Payments Vision 2025, aiming to make e-payment options more accessible, affordable, secure, and faster for all users. The vision document derives its essence from the direction provided by the Board for Regulation and Supervision of Payment and Settlement Systems. It is primarily based on five key goals, namely Integrity, Inclusion, Innovation, Institutionalisation and Internationalisation. The theme of this vision is ‘E-Payments for Everyone, Everywhere, Everytime’ (4Es).
Objectives and Expected Outcomes
The primary objective of the Payment Vision 2025 is to facilitate users with affordable and accessible payment options at any time, anywhere. Some of the key aspects include geotagging of digital payment infrastructure, revising guidelines for Prepaid Payment Instruments, and connecting credit cards and banking products to UPI. Other objectives involve enhancements to the Cheque Truncation System, establishing a new system for processing online merchant payments, and properly regulating BigTechs and FinTechs in the payments arena.
These objectives will lead to significant achievements such as the reduction of cheque-based payments and a substantial increase in digital payment transactions, debit card usage, and the number of registered customers for mobile-based transactions.
Significance of this Initiative
The RBI’s Payments Vision 2025 will play a crucial role in shaping India’s payment infrastructure. By offering a safer, secured, and seamless payment ecosystem, it can act as a benchmark for all payment players and FinTechs to align with these objectives.
Moreover, the initiative will bring global reach to Indian payment systems by making them safe, secure, fast, convenient, and affordable. This will democratize payments within India, thereby fulfilling the mantra of ‘Everyone, Everywhere, Every time’.
Achievements of Payment Vision 2019-21
The Payments Vision 2021 targeted to empower every Indian with e-payment options that are safe, quick, convenient, and affordable. This goal has been achieved through various initiatives aimed at enhancing competition, reducing cost, improving convenience, and boosting confidence among consumers.
Notable achievements include the creation of a regulatory sandbox, opening access of Centralised Payment Systems to non-bank PSOs, waiving charges levied by RBI for transactions processed in RTGS and NEFT systems, making NEFT, RTGS and NACH available on a 24x7x365 basis, and creating a framework for regulating Payment Aggregators.
Understanding Payments Vision 2025 through UPSC Exam Questions
In order to provide an insight into the topic, here is a previous year question from the UPSC Civil Services Examination related to the RBI’s directives about ‘Storage of Payment System Data’. The question required candidates to identify the correct statements about the directive.
The correct answer indicated that RBI directed all system providers to store the entire data relating to payment systems operated solely in India. However, no provision regarding the ownership and operation of the systems by public sector enterprises was provided. Also, it was highlighted that the directive required payment system providers to submit the System Audit Report (SAR) conducted by CERT-IN empaneled auditors.