As a part of the Digital India initiative, NPCI is planning to make bill payments digital across the country. In 2013, RBI had estimated that around 3,080 crore bills were generated amounting to `6,20,000 crore in the top 20 cities. This is expected to rise to `9,30,000 cr by 2019, and BBPS will be one big leap.

1. What is BBPS?

Bharat Bill Payments System is an integrated online plat form which is being developed by the National Payments Corporation of India for all kinds of bill payments.The platform intends to build an interoperable service through a network of agents, enabling multiple payment modes along with instant generation of receipts of payments. It would con nect the utility service companies on one end and all payments service pro viders on the other.

2. What is the scope of BBPS?

BBPS aims to make regular bill pay ments for all utility services easy . That includes water, DTH and telecom. However, the plan is to expand its service area to in clude school fee, university fee, mu nicipality taxes, mutual funds, insur ance premiums etc., but as per clearances from the RBI.

3. Benefits of using BBPS?

Customer Benefits: The biggest advantage is that the bill can be paid anywhere and anytime. There would be retail points for bill payments across the country who would be able to accept all kinds of bills payments made through credit cards, debit cards, mobile wallets, net banking (IMPS, NEFT).The BBPS outlets would include banks, ATMs, business correspondents, kiosks etc. and payments would be made securely through the NPCI network with instant receipts getting generated.

Participants Benefits:

Utility service providers would be able to get payments instantly , they would not need to maintain bill collection centres by themselves, value added services can be added by the operators, bills can be generated electronically and disbursal can also be electronic. Along with these, the BBPS platform would have fraud monitoring and risk mitigation systems in place in order to ensure smooth online transactions.

4. How can a customer get registered?

For a customer to get registered with the Bharat Bill Payments System, he can ei ther walk into any BBPS retail outlet or register himself online at the BBPS website.The customer would be required to provide his name, address, email id, mobile number and an identification document. After registration, a customer ID would be created which would be used as a reference for all future transactions.

5. Who are the ones lining up for a BBPOU licence?

The payments companies have applied for the BBPOU licence. However, the big gest beneficiary of this scheme would be the domestic remittance companies and business correspondents of the banks. They already have their retail presence across the country which they would be using these outlets as their bill collection points.