The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said that prepaid payment instruments have to offer their KYC compliant users interoperability mandatorily by 31 March 2022. This will mean that a user of a wallet service, who has a full KYC compliant payment wallet, will be able to send and receive money to and from different mobile wallets. The PPIs will have to enable interoperability through UPI while card-based prepaid payment instruments will have to enable it through card networks, a circular from RBI said. Hence, payment wallets and prepaid cards could be used to withdraw cash at ATMs, micro-ATMs and eligible POS terminals by March 2022. Users of full KYC-compliant PPIs issued by non-bank PPI issuers can withdraw a maximum of Rs 2000 per transaction and Rs 10000 per month per PPI, the circular said. All cash withdrawal transactions performed using a card / wallet, shall be authenticated by an additional factor of authentication or PIN. The idea to introduce interoperability within PPIs was first floated by the RBI in 2017 and it had laid down guidelines for enabling it in 2018, although at the time it was not made mandatory. The circular also says prepaid payment instruments for mass transit systems are exempt from interoperability and gift prepaid payment instruments have the option to offer interoperability.
