RBI has given final guidelines on implementing interoperability among various different kinds of Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPIs), including e-wallets, meal vouchers, and gift vouchers. However, the central bank has not made it mandatory for all the PPI issuers. It has also not given any time for when the wallets can be operable.

The central bank of India also mandated that all forms of wallet interoperability will happen through Unified Payment Interface and cards through interoperable card networks. For the security purposes, the RBI has clarified the PPIs issuers to adhere to all the security guidelines provided by the National Payments Corporation of India for UPI and card networks. The interoperability will be made only available to those with full KYC wallets.

The RBI will introduce interoperability among the various PPIs in different phases. In the first phase, PPI issuers (both bank and non-bank entities) shall make all KYC- compliant PPIs issued in the form of interoperable wallets through Unified Payments Interface (UPI) within six months of issue. RBI will then issue a mandate to ensure interoperability between e-wallets and bank accounts through UPI. In the last phase, they will be focussing on the interoperability between payment cards and PPIs by working with card payment companies. The new system will be beneficial for both users and merchants in many ways. It will allow merchants, having a registered wallet with full KYC, to get payment from the customer without using any other registered digital wallet. Users could also be able to transfer funds between the different issued PPI wallets.

“Introduction of interoperability is a revolutionary move as it has given the PPIs a chance to compete with the physical retail market. Most merchants who had to put quick response (QR) codes of different wallets to accept payments from customers, will now just put the QR code of one wallet. One can easily transfer the money from one wallet to another,” said Sunil Kulkarni, Joint Managing Director at Oxigen Services (India) Private Limited.     

Last year in October, RBI talked about allowing mobile wallet interoperability and also promised to provide guidelines on implementing the interoperability within six months.