FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is BHIM?
BHIM is biometric version of UPI (Unified Payment Intereface), USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) which is expected to minimise role of plastic cards, PoS (Point of sale) machines. The Prime Minister on Friday launched an Aadhaar based mobile payment application known as BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money).
Precisely what are the basic requirements of a BHIM?
- It is primarily a merchant app.
- It requires a biometric reader or a finger print scanner connected to a smart phone
- Customer does not need a phone or a debit card or a Credit Card. All they need is a Bank Account linked to an Aadhar card.
- The app would connect to the Aadhar linked bank Account.
What is the system followed here?
a. Download the app on a smart phone or on a feature phone
b. No internet connectivity is required for this app.
c. Further improvements are being taken up to increase the Power of BHIM in the coming two weeks.
d. Money can be withdrawn even with one’s finger prints, when the improved version is in place whose security is being worked out now.
How is BHIM more helpful?
i) BHIM is a biometric and rebranded version of UPI (Unified Payment Interface) and USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data). It is expected to minimise the role of plastic cards and point-of-sale machines, which was the only source available once, for a less-cash society.
ii) The app is supposed to assist in digital payments of people who have a bank account but either do not have debit or credit cards or are unable to use them. At present, it is available only on the Android mobile operating system.
iii) It can be downloaded by merchants and used with a biometric reader, currently available for Rs 2,000.
iv) A customer only needs to use his or her fingerprint to pay from an Aadhaar-linked account.
v) The app would eliminate the fee payments for service providers like card companies such as MasterCard or Visa.
What is the improvement in the area of digital payments?
(1) DIGITAL PAYMENT CHANNELS, like mobile wallets, USSD and RuPay, have seen a massive market and rise in transactions with the demonetisation drive.
(2) According to Government data, the number of USSD transactions saw a 5,135 per cent jump, from 97 such deals a day on November 8 to 5,078 on December 25.
(3) The value of transactions on USSD — mobile short code message, used mainly for banking services on feature phones — during the same period grew 4,061 per cent, from Rs 1 crore a day to Rs 46 crore on December 25.
This is indeed a tremendous leap in the Digital Transactions in a Digital World.
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