Cabinet clears Rs 2,600-cr scheme for promotion of RuPay Debit cards, low-value BHIM-UPI transactions

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the incentive scheme for the promotion of RuPay Debit cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions (person-to-merchant). The incentive scheme has a financial outlay of Rs 2,600 crore.

Acquiring banks will be provided financial incentives for promoting Point-of-Sale (PoS) and e-commerce transactions for the current financial year FY 2022-23. With this, the government aims to build a robust digital payment system and promote UPI Lite and UPI 123 Pay as economical and user-friendly digital payments.  

In her speech on the Budget for FY2022-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the government's intent to continue the financial support for digital payments announced in the previous budget, with a focus on promoting the use of payment platforms that are economical and user-friendly. 

The scheme has been formulated in compliance with the aforesaid budget announcement.

In FY2021-22, the Centre had approved an incentive scheme in compliance with the budget announcement of FY2021-22 to give a further boost to digital transactions. 

As a result, total digital payments transactions registered a year-on-year growth of 59 per cent, rising from 5,554 crore in FY2020-21 to 8,840 crore in FY2021-22. BHIM-UPI transactions registered a year-on-year growth of 106 per cent, rising from 2,233 crore in FY2020-21 to 4,597 crore in FY2021-22.

The government has been taking initiatives for the promotion of digital payments across the country. Over past years, digital payment transactions have witnessed high growth. 

UPI has achieved a record of 782.9 crore digital payment transactions with a value of Rs 12.82 lakh crore in the month of December 2022.

The Cabinet also approved setting up of a national-level multi-state cooperative seed society and organic society under Multi-State Cooperative Societies (MSCS) Act, 2002.

The seed society will help reduce the yield gaps and enhance productivity, while the organic society will act as an umbrella organisation for the aggregation, procurement, branding, and marketing of organic products.