The Reserve Bank of Governor Shaktikanta Das Wednesday announced that the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) will now include a wide variety of recurring and non-recurring expenses.
As of now, BBPS enables consumers to only make bill payments, as the name suggests and not to the payment of fee to chartered accountant or school fee even if these payments are recurrent. It is run by National Payments Corporation of India or NPCI.
With the new changes in store, the facility will also allow consumers to not only make recurring payments of bills, but the non-recurring ones as well.
Soon the system will allow consumers to make payments for school fees, rent payment etc. So, all this would alter as the proposed changes come into force.
What is BBPS?
It is an integrated bill payment system which is different from several other wallet and digital payment services in a way that it is interoperable (i.e., can be sent across the payment channels). This is a bill payment service carried out through a network of agents, enabling multiple payment modes, and providing immediate confirmation of payment.
So, if someone wants to pay their power or water bills, then instead of sending money through credit card, one can make the payment via any of the payment mode chosen under BBPS.
BBPS is also integrated with the UPI (Unified payments interface) for easy payments through UPI enabled smartphones.
How is the payment made?
The provision is available only with vendors that are linked to Bharat Bill Pay.
Before payment, consumer is meant to verify and re-check the amount to be paid and consumer can then make the payment through net-banking or wallet or UPI or card based on the acceptability of vendor to whom the payment is to be made.
And once the consumer accepts and sends the payment, he gets instant confirmation on the screen mobile/ web with Be-assured logo.
As the new changes are rolled out, consumers – via BBPS -- will now be able to make recurring payments such as rent and college fees, and non-recurring ones such as professional fee to a doctor or chartered accountant.