Mumbai-based Hitachi Payments, a shareholder of SBI Payments, will be teaming with SBI on letting smaller companies accept e-RUPI transactions, a press release says.
The e-RUPI is a single-use, prepaid voucher that allows for sending to recipients, and then can be used for a specified payment.
Merchants can accept those payments by having an application different from the ones used by cards for UPI payments.
SBI has added the UPI Voucher feature on the Yono SBI Merchant app, which will be able to accept prepaid UPI e-vouchers easily. And SBI will also be supported by Hitachi on merchant onboarding and transaction settlements.
The e-RUPI platform, developed by NPCI, was rolled out on Aug. 2 by the prime minister of India. For the first time it was implemented at a private COVID vaccination center.
“Through our collaboration with SBI Payments, we endeavor to empower small businesses and Indian citizens to utilize digital services across the board without being hindered due to technological and literacy challenges,” said Rustom Irani, MD & CEO of Hitachi Payment Services. “We look forward to the e-RUPI being another success in facilitating financial inclusion in India.”
Initially the service was launched as a way for facilitating vaccine payments in bulk for beneficiaries, though the program might likely be used for things like payments of scholarships, facilitating subsidies, direct benefit transfer and other things, for both banked and unbanked citizens.
SBI Payments CEO Giri Kumar Nair said the e-RUPI system could “revolutionize the way banked and unbanked citizens pay for their vaccinations and future-use cases.”
PYMNTS has previously written on the e-RUPI, which has shown the increased need for digital payment possibilities and has processed more than 3.2 billion transactions.
Read more: India’s Pre-Paid Voucher System Requires No Bank Account
This, according to the report, came out to a 15.7 percent spike since June.
Indian experts have said that the pandemic has boosted the switch to digital payments by around five to 10 years.
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