Bharat Bill Pay plans to add taxes, school fees

Mumbai: Over 90% of electricity utilities and almost all telecom providers and direct-to-home (

DTH

) broadcasters are plugged into the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS). This makes the anywhere-anytime facility available to a large section of the population.

BBPS is a centralised bill payment system under the National Payments Corporation of India (

NPCI

), which gathers details of bills issued by electricity, water, telephone, DTH and gas utilities instantly across the country. Speaking to TOI, BBPS chief project officer

A R Ramesh

said that, among the current category of billers, several water utilities are yet to join.

BBPS is looking at expanding both the number of channels through which bills can be paid as also the number of biller categories that are plugged into the system. Currently, the anywhere-anytime payment feature is available through digital wallets, bank mobile apps, net banking and other electronic channels. BBPS sees 4.45 crore bill payment transactions every month.

In addition to this, BBPS will soon add nearly two million agents across India to further expand the bill payments network. The NPCI division plans to enroll agent institutions — like money transfer agents, business correspondents,

common service centres

and cooperative banks — and plug them into the central unit and provide assisted payment to those who are not tech savvy or do not have access to electronic platforms. On the biller side, BBPS is awaiting permission to expand the category base to include school & college fees, insurance, mutual funds, taxes and credit card payments. While there are aggregators who are acquiring utilities and plugging them into the BBPS system on the billers’ side, usage of the BBPS platform on the consumer side is driven by digital wallets and tech-savvy banks.

In a bid to increase usage of their platform, e-wallets have been offering incentives and subsequently sending recurring reminders to consumers. As a result, customers have found themselves being bombarded with bill payment reminders after using multiple e-wallets.

According to Ramesh, BBPS has informed all digital wallets, banks and other operating units that facilitate bill payments not to fetch consumer data from the utility without their consent. Also, customers have the option to make a single payment without a recurring mandate. Where a mandate has been given, the customer has the option to discontinue the repeat payment option on the same platform.

“This has been part of the contract. We have re-emphasised this and they have been asked to show consent-based compliance,” said Ramesh. According to him, there is no data being shared by NPCI, even mobile number will be masked.