Soon, users will be able to transfer money from one mobile wallet such as Paytm to other wallets like Amazon Pay, MobiKwik, Oxigen etc, as Reserve Bank of India has issued guidelines to permit fund transfer among wallets, in a bid to boost digital transactions across the country. Yesterday, RBI issued final guidelines to enable interoperability for pre-paid instruments or mobile wallets in a bid to facilitate seamless transfer of funds. Apart from wallet to wallet transfer of funds, the new rules now permit mobile wallet companies to issue cards in partnership with card networks like Mastercard and Visa.
Detailing the requirements under the new rules, RBI said that in the case of pre-paid instruments issued in the form of wallets, interoperability across PPIs should be enabled through Unified Payments Interface (UPI). For PPIs issued in the form of cards, the cards should be affiliated to the authorised card networks. “PPI issuers operating exclusively in specific segments like meal, gift and mass transport system (MTS) may also implement interoperability,” the RBI said.
Contrary to expectations, RBI did not impose any minimum net worth requirement on mobile wallet companies in order for them to become interoperable. “Interoperability will allow customers to choose digital wallets they wish to transact with and move money from other digital wallets to their preferred wallet. Interoperability will give a great fillip to digital and cashless payments in India,” an official of a mobile wallet firm told The Indian Express.
Notably, in a bid to ensure security of all such transfers, RBI has mandated PPI issuers to adhere to all security guidelines laid out by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for UPI and card networks for merchant onboarding. However, interoperability will only be made available for full KYC wallets, the central bank noted.