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Showing posts from May, 2020

Unlock 1 – Digital Transactions to zoom up, skyrocket

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        Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs just announced the operating guidelines for Unlock 1. These guidelines are effective until 30 th June 2020.         As the focus of Unlock 1 is mainly on the economy, it is expected that regular economic transactions will come back to pre-Lockdown numbers. The focus in the last couple of months is on Digital Transactions especially Contactless Transactions.         Digital transactions are those economic transactions in which the consideration is executed via Non-Cash modes. Few examples of Digital transactions are as under o    Cheque o    Card to Card Transfer o    IMPS o    NEFT o    RTGS o    eWallet o    UPI o    POS Transactions o    AEPS o    USSD o    Prepaid cards ·         BBPS transactions too fall under the wide umbrella of digital transactions as the customers need not physically visit the bill payment counters of the respective billers. The bills can be settled via B

8 More Billers join the BBPS Platform

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          The total number of Billers on BBPS platform increased from 182 in March-end, to 190 by the end of April 20.           8 new billers onboarded BBPs to avail the benefits of a Pan India Biller System working tirelessly 24*7, 365 days a week, with almost NIL downtime.           Once a Biller is ‘Live’, on BBPS platform, its customers can pay their bills through multiple channels, multiple modes and receive credit confirmation from respective billers very fast.           The TAT for Bill Payment confirmation from BBPS Billers depends on Billers IT Integration with BBPS APIs.           DTH Players offer instant updation, almost real-time, as the majority of customers recharge their DTH accounts at the last time.            The race for the 200 count has begun, by end for May 2020 the number of BBPS Billers will go up another minimum 11, to cross the 200 mark.           Still BBPS has a long way to go. A good beginning has been made and now the p

Thank you Reliance JioMart for enabling UPI as a Payment Option via PhonePe

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        FAQs of the JioMart web portal do not yet display UPI as an accepted payment option. The FAQs mention only Cards and Net Banking as a payment option.         PhonePe is Reliance JioMart’s UPI partner.         However, after customer registration, customer can place the orders from the digital catalog as per his/her choice.         Of course, customer’s have to choose from the range of products available on the digital catalog.         Due to the Covid19 Lockdown, the choice might look a little limited. Reliance Retail is expected to resolve this issue once the complete  lockdown is over. Till then, customers can choose from the limited Digital Catalogue.         Feedback to Reliance Jio Customer Service is welcome at : cs@jiomart.com         Registered customers or on the way to registered customers can provide their feedback at the above email.         The feedback can be on the following points: ·         Product availability ·   

Be ready for double Toll with INVALID FASTag

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          Another booster with a tinge of hope, is the recent decision of MORTH of Double Toll for vehicles entering FASTag enabled lanes with invalid FASTags Vehicles that enter the dedicated FASTag lanes on the national highways with non-activated FASTags or without enough money in the FASTag wallet will have to pay double the toll amount. This decision was conveyed to the public at large via Road Transport and Highways Ministry Amendment to the National Highways Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules, 2008 on Friday i.e 15 th May 2020. Prior to this, the vehicle user   was required to pay twice the payable fee at the toll plaza if the vehicle didn't have the FASTag and entered the dedicated FASTag lane. This is according to a decision of the Road Transport and Highways Ministry and will encourage people to top up their FASTags and prevent users without money in their FASTag wallet from driving into the dedicated lanes and insist on using the l

Atmanirbhar @ eTrading of Agriculture Produce to boost Digital Transactions

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           In today’s announcement by Smt.Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s Finance Minister FM announcement on the ongoing Atmanirbhar reforms, the following point fascinated me. Quote: 10. A central law will be formulated to provide          Adequate choices to sell produce at attractive price. ·          Barrier-free inter-state trade. ·          Framework for e-trading of agriculture produce Unquote           The first step towards digitization of transactions in the Agricultural produce area took off with fine-tuning of eNAM platform.           The eNAM platform took off in the 2 nd quarter of 2016 with 21 Agricultural Mandis taking part in the pilot run.           Over the years, 585+ plus mandis across 16 States and 2 UTs onboarded eNAM platform. 38 new mandis got integrated on eNAM on 15 th May 2020 taking the total mandis to 1000. Yes, 1000 mandis are now live on eName           And, today’s announcement mentions about a Central Law to

'Atma Nirbhar Abhiyan’ MSME eMarketplace to boost Digital Lending

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        I firmly believe in the Joy of Safe ePayments. The announcement by Smr.Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s Finance Minister on 13 th May 2020 regarding ‘MSME eMarketplace’, cheered my heart.   The working details will be rolled out in the next few days. Any delay will further hamper the recovery of MSME Units from COVID19 effects. MSME eMarketplace will replace traditional Trade Exhibitions. In Trade exhibitions, MSMEs set up stalls to familiarise potential buyers with their products. Under the new SOPs, conducting trade exhibitions will be difficult and cumbersome. Hence eMarketplace is the new approach to replace the traditional awareness meets. Quote: We are developing an e-market portal like Alibaba. We will call it Bharat Craft. This will provide a direct interface between buyers and sellers. In the next 2-3 years this portal will bring a turnover of about .`10 lakh crore to the MSME sector,” Gadkari said via an email communication. The governme

Ahmedabad #CashFreeCoronaFree UPI push

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          Ahmedabad civic officials are pushing for digital transactions in the citizen’s day to day life. UPI is the preferred mode of digital transactions being promoted by Ahmedabad Municipal officials.   Please see this video on Twitter  https://twitter.com/i/status/1260119624697499649 , promoting cashless transactions. Special teams have been formed to spread the Joy of Safe ePayments. Please note it is not mandatory for Digital Transactions, it is only an advisory. An advisory which may reduce the chances of spreading Corona Virus through cash transactions. In case commercial establishments choose cash transactions, then a special tray is required for buyers to put the physical cash.           The civic administration officials of Ahmedabad Municipal to promote contactless trade, is pushing for Digital Transactions.           Digital Transactions are a great way to reduce the hassles of cash transactions. At the same time, Digital transactions should