RBI to streamline net banking by making merchant payments interoperable
MUMBAI : Customers will soon be able to pay businesses through net banking irrespective of whether their banks and the merchants’ payment aggregator are integrated, with the central bank ironing out one more wrinkle in India’s rapidly evolving digital payments ecosystem. “We have given approval for implementing such an interoperable system to NPCI Bharat BillPay Ltd. We expect the launch of this interoperable payment system for internet banking during the current calendar year," Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das said on Monday.
Das said such interoperability would facilitate quicker settlement of funds for merchants. At present, net banking transactions are not interoperable, requiring banks to individually integrate and have bilateral arrangements with each payment aggregator servicing different online merchants. (Customers can pay merchants or businesses online through credit and debit cards and UPI, though.) Payment aggregators are intermediaries that facilitate digital payments between consumers and merchants or businesses.
At present, there are 18 online payment aggregators authorized by RBI, including Razorpay Software Pvt. Ltd, Amazon Pay (India) Pvt. Ltd, Google India Digital Services Pvt.
Ltd, Tata Payments Ltd, and Zomato Payments Pvt. Ltd. Interoperable net banking payments will be akin to setting up a clearing house to settle internet banking transactions between customers and merchants, said a person familiar with RBI’s plans.
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