NPCI issues guidelines for prepaid UPI e-vouchers

MUMBAI: Paving the way for a prepaid Unified Payments Interface — or UPI — platform, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has come out with guidelines for issue of electronic vouchers that can be used by mobile phone owners without any app or bank account.

These vouchers will be for one-time use for payments. The government aims to use these vouchers for promoting Covid vaccinations using the private infrastructure. However, in the long term, the UPI prepaid vouchers are expected to play a much bigger role in one-time benefit transfers and replace other prepaid instruments like gift cards.

Currently, issuing a plastic prepaid card with a chip can cost as much as Rs 200 for a bank, considering the logistics cost of purchasing the cards, printing and delivering them.