Reserve bank of India to geotag e-payment touchpoints for better monitoring

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By TBN Staff


Reserve bank of India to geotag e-payment touchpoints for better monitoring: Presently, it is the era of digital payments. With evolving times, the technology associated must also evolve. Especially in digital payments, securing transactions has become an essential aspect of protection. The primary financial institution’s attention is on deepening digital payments and inclusive access to all citizens.

To meet the same, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has determined to move ahead with enhancing the accessibility and tracking of digital payments. The financial organization has created a framework to geotag payment system touchpoints. This framework adheres to Section 10. It further reads along with the Section 18 Payment and Settlement Systems Act, which was brought into the constitution in 2007 (Act 51 of 2007).

According to the RBI, “To establish a robust payment acceptance infrastructure, we must have a clear objective of being available and accessible through the smart cities and rural areas.” Further, RBI said: “We will disclose the date from which the information shall be reported to the Reserve Bank.”

What is a digital payment system?

The digital payment system is a Cashless transaction system. You can operate a digital payment via digital or online mode. There exists no physical exchange of money. Both the parties, the payer and the payee, use digital mediums to alternate cash between them. Its goals are to create a ‘digitally empowered’ financial system, ‘ Faceless, Paperless, Cashless.’

There are diverse sorts and modes of virtual bills. These encompass debit/credit score cards, net banking, cell wallets, virtual charge apps, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) provider, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), Bank prepaid cards, mobile banking, etc.

Benefits of the geotagging payment system:

• Geo-tagging payment system involves the technology to capture the geographical coordinates of the place where the transaction occurs. It includes the appropriate latitude and longitude of payment touchpoints. It is deployed by using traders to acquire bills from their clients.

• Permit for accurate availability tracking of charge recognition infrastructures, consisting of Points of Sale (PoS) terminals and Quick Response (QR) codes.

• Permit policymakers to interfere to enhance charge infrastructure distribution.

• Let Banks and non-bank payment system operators (PSOs) acquire and preserve geographic coordinates for all payment touchpoints across the country, together with service provider statistics and charge recognition infrastructure information.

• In addition, the video displays units’ infrastructure density throughout exclusive locations.

• Identifies the scope for deploying extra charge contact factors and helps target virtual literacy programs.

The physical infrastructure for digital payment transactions includes a broad category. They are
• Banking infrastructure comprises of
bank branches
Automated Teller Machines (ATMs)
Cash Recycler Machines (CRMs)
Cash Deposit Machines (CDMs)
micro-ATMs used by Business Correspondents (BCs)
Branch offices
extension counters, etc.

• payment acceptance infrastructure, which includes
Quick Response (QR) codes
Points of Sale (PoS) terminals,
Payment System Operators (PSOs), etc.

Methods by which Geotagging information will be submitted to the RBI are –
• Android-based PoS terminals include –
mobile PoS
soft PoS
Tablet PoS
desktop PoS
self-service kiosk PoS

• non-Android-based PoS terminals include:
GPRS SIM Card-embedded
PSTN Line Connectivity
paper-based
soft QR codes of Bharat QR, UPI QR.

The critical information of the merchant details which needs to be registered is:
Merchant name
Merchant type
merchant ID
merchant category
merchant/payment aggregator information
merchant contact details
merchant location details

On October 8, 2021, the Monetary Policy Statement 2020-21 introduced the discharge of a method for geotagging physical fee recognition infrastructure to assist with the nuanced unfolding of recognition infrastructure and widely wide-spread get entry to digital payments.

RBI also stated: “This might supplement the Payments Infrastructure Development Fun framework via the higher deployment of recognition infrastructure and wider entry to payments.”

RBI directs that each bank and non-financial institution PSOs may be entirely accountable for making sure information about fee contact factors deployed and the traders acquired/onboarded via way of them is updated and correct. Further, RBI has requested those PSOs to install area vital measures at their give up to make certain well-timed reporting of the specified data to the RBI according to the indicated timelines.

Banks and non-financial institution PSOs are requested to post the touch info of the nodal officer for geo-tagging via means of March 31, 2022. RBI will offer login credentials to nodal officials of banks/non-financial institution PSOs for filing their data in CIMS.

The digital payment wave in India isn’t going anywhere. With economic literacy and economic accessibility on everyone’s mind, online bills will develop exponentially. As an enterprise and a professional, now is the right time to onboard the digital payment wagon and enable your customers to transact online securely.