The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday raised the cap on recurring e-mandate-based payments to Rs 15,000 from Rs 5,000 in order to facilitate larger-value payments. The central bank also announced its decision to increase the subsidy amount for micro entrepreneurs accepting digital payments under the Payment Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF).
The framework for the processing of e-mandate-based recurring payments was introduced by the RBI to offer greater convenience, safety and security to the users. Under the framework, over 62.5 million mandates have been registered in favour of a large number of domestic and over 3,400 international merchants, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said.
“To further facilitate recurring payments like subscriptions, insurance premia, education fee, etc. of larger value under the framework, the limit is being enhanced from Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000 per transaction. This will further leverage the benefits available under the framework and augment customer convenience,” Das said.
Ramesh Narasimhan, CEO, Worldline India, said as consumer confidence around digital payments grows, their preference for convenience is increasing too. “Today’s announcement to enhance the limit of e-mandates on cards for recurring payments is a welcome move as it will not only benefit consumers to set mandates for multiple categories of payments but also include more players from the insurance, education, and loan sectors,” he said.
The central bank has decided to make modifications to the PIDF scheme by enhancing the subsidy amount and simplifying the subsidy claim process, among other steps. The measures will further accelerate and augment the deployment of payment acceptance infrastructure in the targeted geographies, the RBI said.
The PIDF scheme is aimed at incentivising the deployment of payment acceptance infrastructure such as physical point of sale (PoS), mPoS (mobile PoS) and quick response (QR) codes in tier-III to -VI centres and the northeastern states. Beneficiaries of the PM SVANidhi scheme in tier-I and -II centres were included under the scheme in August 2021. As at April-end 2022, over 11.8 million new touch points have been deployed under the scheme against a target of 9 million touch points to be deployed over three years by 2023-end, the RBI said. “By extending and simplifying the subsidy claim process, the RBI is doubling down on India’s digital payments infrastructure by incentivising adoption and growth in non-urban areas. This is crucial to increase access to financial services,” said Rupesh Nambiar, CFO, Global PayEX.
