New Delhi: There is good news for crores of feature phone users in the country. Now there will be no need for smartphones and the internet to make digital payments. Giving a big gift to users using feature phones, RBI has launched UPI based payments product on Tuesday. With this, feature phone users will be able to make digital payments easily.
There are crores of people in the country who use feature phones. Most of them are people living in rural areas. These people are unable to buy expensive smartphones and use feature phones with calling and messaging facilities. Such people will also be able to make UPI payments now. The full name of UPI is Unified Payments Interface.
247 helpline will also be available RBI said in a tweet on Tuesday, RBI Governor is launching UPI facility UPI123Pay for feature phones and 247 helpline- Digisathi for digital payments on March 8, 2022, at 12 noon. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had announced the launch of a digital payment system for feature phones in December last year. UPI has emerged as a popular payment system in the country.
Financial facilities will reach more people
Feature phones do not have the same features as smartphones. These are available in the market at very low prices. Feature phones have the facility to make calls and text messages. The RBI governor had said that in order to increase the reach of financial facilities in the country, it is necessary that feature phone users should be brought into the mainstream of digital payments.
Know how many feature phone users are there in the country
According to TRAI data for October 2021, there are 118 crore mobile phone users. Part of it still uses feature phones. There are 74 crore smartphone users in the country. The remaining 44 crore feature phone users are not able to use the options of digital payment. Through this UPI123Pay facility, feature phone users will be able to make digital payments just like smartphone users. With this facility, users will be able to pay a very small amount easier.
