Everyone across the country is currently using the UPI service using PhonePe, Paytm, Google Pay or WhatsApp. However, it is necessary to have a smart phone to use this service. However, the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank of India, has now announced UPI service for feature phone users as well. The Reserve Bank is soon going to launch UPI based payment products for feature phone handsets.
In a tweet through its official handle, the central bank said that apart from smart phones for Fiqrah phones, now a digital payment system is being started for feature phones as well. Talking about this, Governor Shaktikanta Das said that it is very important to bring feature phone users in the stream of digital payments. Because still out of 118 crore phone users in India, only 74 crore users still have a smartphone.
The RBI governor had said that these products, along with other complimentary solutions, will facilitate UPI-based digital payment solutions on feature phones to promote mass digitisation. It is proposed to launch a UPI-based payment product for feature phone users. Further details will be announced shortly. However, feature phone users have limited access to paid products products. However feature phones have NUUP (National Unified USSD Platform) as an option to avail basic payment services using shortcodes of *99#.