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RBI hikes UPI transaction limit for hospitals and educational institutions

The Reserve Bank of India raised the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment limits for hospitals and educational institutions from ₹1 lakh to ₹5 lakh per transaction. The announcement was made by Governor Shaktikanta Das while unveiling the December bi-monthly monetary policy.

The enhanced limit will help consumers make UPI payments of higher amounts for education and healthcare purposes,” he said.

The cap on e-mandates for recurring online transactions was also hiked to ₹1 lakh.

Under the e-mandate framework, an additional factor of authentication (AFA) is required for recurring transactions exceeding ₹15,000 currently. This is now being raised to ₹1 lakh for mutual fund investments, insurance premia payments and credit card payments.

“E-mandates for making payments of a recurring nature have become popular among customers. It is now proposed to enhance this limit to ₹1 lakh per transaction for recurring payments of mutual fund subscriptions, insurance premium subscriptions and credit card repayments,” the governor said. The measure, he said, will further accelerate the usage of e-mandates.

In another development, the RBI also announced to set up a “Fintech Repository” for a better understanding of developments in the fintech ecosystem and support the sector. “This will be operationalised by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub in April 2024 or earlier. FinTechs would be encouraged to provide relevant information voluntarily to this Repository,” Das said.

Financial entities like banks and NBFCs in India are increasingly partnering with fintechs. Das also said that the Central bank is working on the establishment of a cloud facility for the financial sector in India. “Banks and financial entities are maintaining an ever-increasing volume of data. Many of them are utilising cloud facilities for this purpose,” he added.

“Adding such a facility would enhance data security, integrity, and privacy. It will also facilitate better scalability and business continuity,” he said. Das said the cloud facility is intended to be rolled out in a calibrated fashion over the medium term.