RBI launches “Har Pal Digital” campaign in digital payments push

The Reserve Bank of India on Monday launched the “Har Payment Digital” campaign on the occasion of Digital Payments Awareness Week to further the usage of digital banking services by consumers across the country.

The Digital Payments Awareness Week (DPAW) will be observed between March 6 and 12 and the campaign theme for this year is “Digital Payment Apnao, Auron ko bhi Sikhao”, which translates to “adopt digital payments and also teach others”.

During the drive, regional offices of the RBI will be conducting awareness and outreach programmes. Similar initiatives will be undertaken by the bank and non-bank payment system operators, the RBI said.

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“The Reserve Bank will also initiate a ‘75 Digital Villages’ programme in observance of 75 years of the Independence. Under this programme, payment system operators (PSOs) will adopt 75 villages across the country and convert them into digital payment-enabled villages,” the central bank said.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das while launching the campaign asked all stakeholders to promote digital payments in the country.

He said the volume of UPI transactions increasing multifolds from 0.45 crore in January 2017 to 804 crore in January 2023, which shows that it is the preferred payment mode for most Indians in the present scenario and awareness programmes will further add to this number.

“We have taken steps for the internationalisation of our payment systems and cross border linkage of fast payment systems of India and Singapore i.e. UPI-PayNow. This linkage is in addition to the QR code-based and UPI enabled P2M payments already happening in Bhutan, Singapore and the UAE,” Governor Das said.

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“Recently, we also enabled the visitors from G20 counties to be onboarded to UPI without having a bank account in India. Through this initiative, the G20 delegates had a first-hand experience of making merchant payments seamlessly through the UPI, during their stay in India,” he added.