CHENNAI: National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is planning to study the effectiveness of Aadhaar-linked Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) mobile app based on the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) by adding location service access in the next 30 to 45 days.
NPCI chief operating officer Dilip Asbe said NPCI does not have any data on use of the mobile app across the country as the app launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month does not have ‘Location Computing System.’
He said the new version of BHIM App will cover features like regional language, split bills facility etc. It will also integrate Bharat QR code based payments which will support Visa, MasterCard and RuPay cards. The Aadhaar-linked BHIM mobile app facilitates the process of digital payments by using the Aadhaar number linked to bank account. It will allow every citizen to transact digitally using their thumb imprint on a merchant’s biometric-enabled device. Currently, there are about 40 crore people in the country whose bank accounts are directly linked to their Aadhaar card.
NPCI said that the 6:1 cash to GDP ratio, the currency in circulation as a proportion of GDP, is the highest in India among the emerging economies. It also said that while India has an upper hand over China when it comes to ATMs per million of cards issued (343:124), China has an advantage over point of sale (POS) usage per million of cards issued (1966:3227).
Asbe also said the digital payments through mobile apps do face security threats. “We did face duplicate sim frauds wherein the IMEI number of mobile phone along with phone and number gets stolen. “Once the threat is detected, we block the sim for two hours,” he said.