The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has come out with “Payments Vision 2025” with core theme of ‘E-Payments for Everyone, Everywhere, Everytime’ (4Es) with an objective to provide every user with safe, secure, fast, convenient, accessible and affordable e-payment options.
“It promises to further elevate India’s payment systems towards a realm of empowering users with affordable payment options accessible anytime and anywhere with convenience,” RBI said in the vision document.
“As this journey towards less-cash and less-card society unfolds, concomitant expansion in the basket of digital payment options with credence and confidence would ensure sustenance of Reserve Bank’s approach of facilitating users with a seamless digital payment experience,” it said.
This will also reinforce India’s position as the global leader in digital payments domain, it added.
“Considering the current geo-political developments across the world, the Payments Vision 2025 document also seeks to address the potential risks arising out of any adverse situation that may arise,” it said.
Resilience to operational and security concerns would continue to be at the heart to withstand and recover from the evolving threat landscape, the RBI said adding Integrity of payment systems shall be non-negotiable for buttressing customer confidence.
“With the change / shift in customer behaviour towards embracing digital and touchless modes of payments, partly due to the CoVID, there is a spike of 50% in mobile banking users, indicating inclusion of first-time users into the digital fold. The challenge to make this an irreversible shift, eventually seeking convenient and tailored payment solutions, would be pursued,” it said in the vision document.
It has been prepared after considering the inputs from various stakeholders and guidance from the Board for Regulation and Supervision of Payment and Settlement Systems of the RBI.
The activities to be taken up during the period up to 2025 as part of Vision 2025 are captured across five anchor goalposts of Integrity, Inclusion, Innovation, Institutionalisation and Internationalisation.
Payments Vision 2025 builds on the initiatives of Payments Vision 2019-21. The RBI said it has been providing strategic direction and implementation plan for structured development of the payment and settlement systems in India through periodic Payments Vision documents right from the year 2001.
