On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched UPI Lite for feature phones, allowing Indian users to enable offline transactions with minor restrictions. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das discovered the on-device wallet when launching UPI on the RuPay credit card, enabling the Bharat Bill Pay System (BBPS) to make cross-border bill payments. To recall, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) announced the debut of UPI Lite in India in March. As mentioned, transactions may allow offline, while online connections may require crediting at the initial stage.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das announced the launch of UPI Lite, which will allow users to conduct online transactions with small restrictions in offline mode. The framework to facilitate small digital payments in offline mode was launched in January, while UPI Lite’s debut was in March.

Users on UPI Lite will be able to make small transactions of up to Rs. 200. However, as NPCI has previously introduced, the total balance of the wallet on the device is limited to up to Rs 2,000. Notably, UPI Lite will compete fiercely with current online mobile wallets like Paytm and MobiKwik.

As mentioned earlier, the initial phase may see debit payments in offline mode but only credit the account when online. However, all UPI transactions may later transition to fully offline mode.

On top of that, users can decide to disable the UPI Lite service at any time in their UPI application. In this case, the balance funds in the wallet on the device side will be refunded to the user account in real-time.

In addition to UPI Lite, the governor also announced UPI for RuPay credit cards and enabled Bharat Bill Pay System (BBPS) for cross-border bill payments. In the first phase, only Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India and Bank of India will use UPI on RuPay credit cards through the Bhim app. Meanwhile, BBPS-enabled cross-border bill payments will go live on the UAE’s Federal Bank and Lulu Exchange.