India has a large mobile phone subscriber base of around 118 crore users (TRAI, October 2021). Out of this a large number of users are still active feature phones, According to Statista, by July 2021, around 74 crore users have smart phones.
However, feature phone users have limited access to innovative payment products.
Although there are such phones NUUP (National Unified USSD Platform) as an option to avail basic payment services using the short code of *99#, has not been taken up.
To deepen financial penetration, reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said that it is necessary to bring feature phone users into the mainstream of digital payments.
In the first group of RBI Regulatory Sandbox, some innovators had successfully showcased their solutions for feature phone payments under the theme of ‘Retail Payments’.
“These products, along with other complimentary solutions, will facilitate UPI-based digital payment solutions on feature phones to promote wider digitization. It is proposed to launch UPI-based payment products for feature phone users. Further details will be announced soon,” she said.
On the regulatory side, FICCI President Uday Shankar He said that the announcements regarding simplification and intensification of UPI will further increase the reach and make it more accessible to the digital payment system.
“As part of the transition from LIBOR, we are also awaiting guidelines on the use of the Interbank Rate or Alternative Reference Rate (ARR) as a benchmark for ECB/trade credit,” Shankar said.