The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
MUMBAI, JANUARY 4, 2022
With an aim to enrich and simplify bill payments in the country, NPCI Bharat BillPay Ltd. (NBBL), the wholly-owned subsidiary of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), has introduced a unique functionality called ‘Unified Presentment Management System’ (UPMS). NBBL through UPMS will enable the customers to set up standing instructions – from any channel and for any mode on their recurring bill payments. The bills will be automatically fetched from the billers and presented to customers for their action, in terms of auto-debit and bill payment management.
With the UPMS launch, the intent is to enable all the Bharat BillPay Operating Units (BBPOU) to extend this facility to their customers/corporate clients with minimal effort through the centralized infrastructure and application support provided by Bharat BillPay Central Unit (BBPCU). UPMS will help in democratizing recurring bill payments and making them further convenient for customers.
UPMS provides a great opportunity for the service providers and fintechs of the digital payments ecosystem to run through this innovative feature in the sandbox environment of BBPS. Several Operating Units (OUs) and Technical Service Providers (TSPs) are actively coming forward in the rapid deployment of UPMS.
This service assumes criticality with the undergoing category expansion, as a majority of the transactions in the new categories under BBPS like mutual fund, insurance, subscriptions, school fee payments, currently happen through presentment and standing instructions. Numbers show that more than 50% of insurance premium payments and SIPs in mutual funds are processed through standing instructions or auto-debits, and it is expected that all AMCs, Insurance companies, and even Educational Institutes will benefit from this platform.
Leading ecosystem partners including Axis Bank and IDFC FIRST Bank amongst private banks and PhonePe amongst consumer tech companies are actively engaged in taking UPMS services to their Billers and Consumers, while many others are accessing the sandbox as a first step to deployment.
Vivek Gupta, President and Head – Wholesale Banking Products, Axis Bank said, “UPMS is a giant leap for the BBPS ecosystem. It will enable a common repository of bills and this will ensure the entire bill payment ecosystem gets updated real-time. Customers now need not worry about making double payments due to delays in payment confirmation or getting erroneous payment-due reminders. UPMS is yet another example of innovation in India’s Digital journey and will create significant convenience for billers by increasing system efficiency and robustness. BBPS is one of the key initiatives for Axis Bank and we look forward to working with NPCI on this journey.”
Ankit Gaur, Director- Business, PhonePe Pvt Ltd said, “UPMS will enhance the efficiency of the current bill payment system by increasing the reliability of the cycle in which the bill is made available to the customers for payment, while also giving them the flexibility to make one time payments or set mandates for recurring payments.”
Madhivanan Balakrishnan, Chief Operating Officer, IDFC FIRST Bank said, “Digital payments across channels touched record highs during the pandemic as users preferred contactless and online modes of payments. As a tech-first bank, we have proactively focused on enhancing digital engagement and experience for our customers. We are pleased to partner NPCI Bharat BillPay for the UPMS facility, which will significantly step up the degree of digital usage for bill payments.”
Noopur Chaturvedi, CEO, NPCI Bharat BillPay Ltd. said, “UPMS is our gift to the entire ecosystem that will add value to each constituent in a unique manner. In our journey to enable every Indian household with ease of Bill Payments, UPMS will not only help with category expansion but also be yet another solution that can enrich the customer journey. The Unified Presentment Management System will add enhanced convenience in the bill viewing as well as payment experience for the customers as it will help them seamlessly create auto-mandates for their upcoming bills. For Billers, UPMS eases the operational management of collections while reducing the infrastructure overheads on their systems that come during Billing cycles. We truly believe that with the support of the ecosystem partners, this functionality will provide superior bill payments experience to millions of customers and service providers.”
