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Economy and Finance

Economy and Finance

What are Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI)?

08 Jun 2023 Zinkpot 192
  1. Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) are instruments that facilitate the purchase of goods and services, conduct of financial services, and enable remittance facilities, among others, against the money stored in them.
  2. They can be in the form of mobile wallets, physical smart cards, secure tokens, vouchers or any other method that allows access to prepaid funds.
  3. The value stored in the instrument is represented by the value that has already been paid for by the holder or the instrument by any method such as, by cash, by debit from a bank account, credit card or even from other PPIs. 
  4. PPIs can come in the form of payment wallets, smart cards, magnetic chips, vouchers, mobile wallets etc. any instrument that can be used to access a prepaid amount is a PPI.
  5. PPIs can be issued by banks and non-banks after obtaining approval from the RBI.
  6. As on November 9, 2022, over 58 banks including Airtel Payments Bank, Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, Jio Payments Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, UCO Bank and Union Bank have been permitted to issue and operate prepaid payment instruments.
  7. There are 33 non-bank PPI issuers as on May 30, 2023. Some of the non-bank PPI issuers are Amazon Pay (India), Bajaj Finance, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, Manappuram Finance Ltd, Ola Financial Services, Razorpay Technologies and Sodexo SVC India Pvt.
  8. PPIs can be issued as cards or wallets. PPIs can be loaded/reloaded by cash, debit to a bank account, or credit and debit cards.
  9. There are three types of prepaid payment instruments: 
  10. Closed system PPIs: No cash withdrawal can be done from such kinds of PPIs. These PPIs help in facilitating the purchase of goods and services from that entity they are issued only. Besides, these instruments cannot be used for payments or settlement for third-party services.
  11. The issuance and operation of such instruments are not classified as a payment system and do not require approval or authorization from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
  12. Semi-closed system PPIs: These payment instruments do not allow to make a cash withdrawal, irrespective of whether they are issued by banks or non-bank institutions. They can normally be used at any merchant location that has a specific contract with the issuer to accept the PPIs as payment instruments. E.g. GPay, Paytm, etc.
  13. Open system PPIs: The most used PPIs are debit and credit cards. One can make a cash withdrawal from these PPIs. These PPIs issued by banks (approved by the central bank) can also be used at any merchant for the purchase of goods and services, including financial services, remittance facilities, etc. Cash withdrawal at ATMs, point of sale terminals and business correspondents is permitted through these PPIs.
  14. As per the recent RBI data, the total number of PPIs stood at 16,185.26 lakh as on March 31, 2023. Of this, the number of wallets was nearly 1,3384.68 lakh and the number of cards was 2800.58 lakh. In FY2023, the total volume transacted through PPIs was 74,667.44 lakh.
  15. Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) holders may soon get protection for their money against any fraud or unauthorised payment transactions. A committee set up to review the Customer Service Standards in RBI Regulated Entities has recommended that the central bank should examine the extension of Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) cover to PPIs.

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