The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has increased the overall balance that an individual customer can keep with Payments Banks by doubling it. Furthermore, your mobile wallets will soon become a bank, since they will be able to send and receive funds in the same way that you do for your bank account.

Payments banks will now be able to keep a cumulative balance of Rs 2 lakh per individual customer at the end of the day.

To encourage optimum use of payment instruments (such as cards, wallets, and so on), and given the scarcity of acceptance infrastructure (such as PoS software, ATMs, QR codes, bill-payment touchpoints, and so on), the Reserve Bank of India has emphasized the benefits of interoperability among issuing and acquiring entities alike, whether banks or non-banks.

“On October 11, 2017, the Master Direction on the Issuance and Operation of PPIs laid out a road map for the phased introduction of interoperability among PPIs issued by banks and non-banks.

Following that, the guidelines released in October 2018 allowed interoperability, but on a voluntary basis, insofar as the PPIs were full-KYC compliant (they met all Know Your Customer requirements).

Despite the passing of two years, migration towards full-KYC PPIs, and thus interoperability, is not significant,” the RBI said.

As a result, it is recommended that interoperability be made mandatory for full-KYC PPIs and other acceptance infrastructure. To encourage the migration of PPIs to full-KYC, it is proposed to raise the outstanding balance cap in such PPIs from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh, according to an RBI announcement.