BENGALURU: Digital payments have been gaining popularity and the Reserve Bank of India will focus on enhancing awareness about digital payments. It will also extend the outreach of payment systems across the country.
The RBI will implement the geo-tagging framework that will provide users with precise locations of existing payment touch points and facilitate implementation of targeted literacy programmes and intervention strategies.
In FY22, the central bank introduced UPI123Pay to facilitate digital enablement of over 40 crore feature phone users in the country.
"The possibility of linking India’s payment systems to other jurisdictions, including the ongoing initiative of interlinking India’s fast payment system - UPI - with similar systems in other jurisdictions, will enhance cross-border payment arrangements, including remittances," the RBI said in its annual report.
It is also factoring in emerging risks in the fintech segment. The central bank said greater use of technology accentuates the concerns related to cyber security.
"The involvement of big tech in the BFSI segment also brings along systemic risks," it says, adding that the central bank mitigates such risks through careful choice of technology and frameworks.
During the last financial year, the RBI took initiatives to enhance the monitoring of cyber security resilience of UCBs (urban cooperative banks). Data templates were designed for data collection so that this will be used for generating the risk scores and profiles of UCBs.
"With increasing impact of the fintech segment on both macro and micro levels, it becomes pertinent to keep facilitating innovation while also bringing regulatory order in the fintech space," the RBI said. It may be noted that the RBI has already advised all SCBs (scheduled commercial banks) to identify critical infrastructure.
Also, in the fintech space, the central bank will facilitate the setting up of 75 Digital Banking Units in 75 districts during this financial year. In January this year, the RBI set up a full-fledged fintech department.