Mobile wallets to become interoperable within six months; RBI issues final guidelines



The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday issued final guidelines for prepaid payment instruments (PPI) such as closed, semi-closed and open wallets. According to the new guidelines, all the PPIs will now be interoperable, which means will allow transaction with each other.

The RBI said that interoperability shall be enabled in phases for the PPIs and that in the first phase, the issuers (both bank and non-bank entities) shall make all KYC-compliant PPIs issued in the form of wallets interoperable amongst themselves through Unified Payments Interface (UPI) within six months from the date of issue of the guidelines.

Subsequently, interoperability shall be enabled between wallets and bank accounts through UPI and for PPIs issued in the form of cards later on. However, banks may continue to issue PPIs in association with authorised card networks.

Besides, RBI has mentioned that PPI issuers will have to adhere to the technical and operational requirements for such interoperability, including those relating to safety and security, risk mitigation, among others.

Charting out the guidelines in a 32-page note, RBI has said that all the companies seeking a licence to operate wallets will have to have a minimum positive net worth of ₹5 crore which needs to be maintained for three years at all times, following which they need to have a net worth of ₹15 crore at all times. Existing wallet companies need to maintain ₹15 crore by March 31, 2020.

On the capital requirement, RBI said that wallets such as Paytm and Mobikwik need to have a minimum net worth of ₹25 crore from the earlier norms of ₹5 crore paid-up capital and ₹1 crore net worth.

It said all the semi-closed PPIs should be upgraded to full KYC norms with 12 months from the date of issue of PPI. The minimum details for KYC shall include OTP verified mobile number and self-declaration of name, address, gender, date of birth and unique identification number of any of the ‘officially valid document’. For existing wallets, companies need to ensure that they will have full KYC by the end of the December 31. Following which, these wallets will cease to exist.

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