E-RUPI Goes Live for Mswipe Merchants; Boost for Vaccination Drives at Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities

E-RUPI goes live for Mswipe merchants; boost for vaccination drives at hospitals and healthcare facilities

Merchants can accept e-RUPI on mPOS and Mobile App

Mumbai, 01 September, 2021: Boosting ease of digital payment acceptance by MSMEs across India, Mswipe has gone live with e-RUPI for all its 6.75lakh POS and 1.1 million QR merchants. Mswipe has powered hospitals and healthcare facilities to accept the digital vouchers from beneficiaries, thereby giving a boost to the vaccination drive against COVID-19.

Earlier in August, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi had launched e-RUPI to provide for a digital payment solution between sponsors of services and beneficiaries.

By taking e-RUPI live on its platform, Mswipe, a leading end-to-end digital enabler for MSMEs, will power merchants to accept digital payments by simply scanning the QR or SMS string based voucher on the customers’ phone.

Ankit Bhatnagar, Head of Product, Mswipe said, “e-RUPI built on the UPI platform is a step in the direction of expanding the digital payments infrastructure in the country and in empowering businesses to accept payments in the most suitable form from their customers. This democratizes digital payments and at the same time has a tremendous potential to limit misuse of subsidies that are meant for government welfare schemes and under corporate support programmes for their employees. Providing e-RUPI is a step towards our commitment in empowering our merchants to adopt all kinds of digital acceptance methods to improve customer experience and also boost their revenue.”

Merchants can now use the ‘UPI Voucher’ feature on the Mswipe Merchant App to accept prepaid e-RUPI based payments from customers. They can accept payments on their POS terminals as well as by registering on the Mswipe Merchant App. Customers using e-vouchers will not have any dependency on carrying a card or having a bank account or even internet banking services or any digital payment for that matter as they will be able to receive the vouchers via SMS on their Aadhaar registered mobile number.

The electronic voucher can be used for government welfare programmes such as vaccination, nutrition, fertilizer subsidies among others in addition to helping corporates roll out employee benefit initiatives including reimbursement for COVID inoculation, travel allowances, business expenses and corporate social responsibility initiatives.

e- RUPI will connect the sponsors of the services to the beneficiaries and service providers through a digital interface. It will also play an important role in strengthening Direct Benefit Transfer while ensuring transparency.

Mswipe aims to be India’s largest financial services platform for SMEs by providing seamless, omnichannel digital payments and other value-added financial services. It is the largest independent mobile POS merchant acquirer and network provider with 6.75 lakh POS and 1.1 million QR merchants across the country. Mswipe offers a host of payment acceptance services for SME’s enabling them to accept - cards, wallets, mobile payment apps and bank apps, contactless and QR payments. Headquartered in Mumbai, Mswipe began operations in 2011. Its key investors include B Capital, UC-RNT, Falcon Edge Capital, Matrix Capital Partners, DSG Partners and Epiq Capital.

All About e-RUPI: Which Banks Issue, Where To Use and Benefits

Early this month, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi launched digital payment solution e-RUPI, a cashless and contactless instrument for digital payment. Prime Minister said that the eRUPI voucher is going to play a huge role in making Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) more effective in digital transactions in the country and will give a new dimension to digital governance. He said e-RUPI is a symbol of how India is progressing by connecting people’s lives with technology.

Press Information Bureau (PIB) Mumbai, along with inputs from National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), has published a press release today, explaining all about e-RUPI, the new digital payment instrument.

What is e-RUPI and how it works ?

e-RUPI is basically a digital voucher which a beneficiary gets on his phone in the form of an SMS or QR code. It is a pre-paid voucher, which he/she can go and redeem it at any centre that accepts its.

For example, if the Government wants to cover a particular treatment of an employee in a specified hospital, it can issue an e-RUPI voucher for the determined amount through a partner bank. The employee will receive an SMS or a QR Code on his feature phone / smart phone. He/she can go to the specified hospital, avail of the services and pay through the e-RUPI voucher received on his phone.

Thus e-RUPI is a one time contactless, cashless voucher-based mode of payment that helps users redeem the voucher without a card, digital payments app, or internet banking access.

e-RUPI should not be confused with Digital Currency which the Reserve Bank of India is contemplating. Instead e-RUPI is a person specific, even purpose specific digital voucher.

How is e-RUPI advantageous to the Consumer ?

e-RUPI does not require the beneficiary to have a bank account, a major distinguishing feature as compared to other digital payment forms. It ensures an easy, contactless two-step redemption process that does not require sharing of personal details either.

Another advantage is that e-RUPI is operable on basic phones also, and hence it can be used by persons who do not own smart-phones or in places that lack internet connection.

What are the benefits of e-RUPI for the sponsors.

e-RUPI is expected to play a major role in strengthening Direct-Benefit Transfer and making it more transparent. Since, there is no need for physical issuance of vouchers, it will also lead to some cost savings as well.

What benefits accrue to the Service Providers.

Being a prepaid voucher, e-RUPI would assure real time payments to the service provider.

Who has developed the e-RUPI ?

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which oversees the digital payments ecosystem in India, has launched e-RUPI, a voucher-based payments system to promote cashless transactions.

It has been developed in collaboration with the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and National Health Authority.

Which Banks issue e-RUPI ?

NPCI has partnered with 11 banks for e-RUPI transactions. They are Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Indian Bank, IndusInd Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India and Union Bank of India.

The acquiring Apps are Bharat Pe, BHIM Baroda Merchant Pay, Pine Labs, PNB Merchant Pay and YoNo SBI Merchant Pay.

More banks and acquiring Apps are expected to join the e-RUPI initiative soon.

Where can e-RUPI be used now ?

To begin with NPCI has tied up with more than 1,600 hospitals where e-RUPI can be redeemed.

Experts say, in the days to come the user base of e-RUPI is expected to widen, with even private sector using it to deliver employee benefits and MSMEs adopting it for Business To Business (B2B) transactions.

PM Modi Launches Digital Payment Solution e-RUPI

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi launched digital payment solution e-RUPI, a person and purpose specific digital payment solution, today via video conference. e-RUPI is a cashless and contactless instrument for digital payment.

Essentially, e-RUPI is a cashless and contactless digital payments medium, which will be delivered to mobile phones of beneficiaries in form of an SMS-string or a QR code.

Addressing the event, the Prime Minister said that the eRUPI voucher is going to play a huge role in making DBT more effective in digital transactions in the country and will give a new dimension to digital governance. 

This will help everyone in targeted, transparent and leakage free delivery. He said e-RUPI is a symbol of how India is progressing by connecting people’s lives with technology. He also expressed happiness that this futuristic reform initiative has come at a time when the country is celebrating the Amrit Mahotsav on the 75th anniversary of independence.

Commenting on e-RUPI launch, Anand Kumar Bajaj, Founder & CEO, PayNearby, said in statement, This is the next best step to take high end of tech to bottom of pyramid. It will help the Government to dispense the specific policy benefit to an identified user segment without any misuse of the funds or delay. The funds will not need to move around in banks but the beneficiary can directly go to end point to avail the intended benefit.

"Beyond a code sending to mobile number of a user, I believe the upgrade can also scan an Aadhaar card at the dispensation counter and identify the user for the respective service. This is the true test of network that has been created at the last mile in India because at PayNearby our merchants will be able to identify the user for right benefit and deliver it in pointed/specific manner. Targeted, transparent and leakage free delivery to the end point is the intention of policy makers and we are happy that PayNearby will be able to enable this objective. The Central Bank Digital Currency movement has already started by India now. While the world is talking of Central Bank Digital Currency, India has already launched it today.", added Anand Kumar Bajaj.

PM Mod further said that in addition to the government, if any organization wants to help someone in their treatment, education or for any other work, then they will be able to give an eRUPI voucher instead of cash. This will ensure that the money given by him is used for the work for which the amount was given.

The Prime Minister said eRUPI is person as well as purpose specific. eRUPI will ensure that the money is being used for the purpose for which any help or any benefit is being provided.

The Prime Minister recalled that there was a time when technology was considered a domain of the rich people and there was no scope for technology in a poor country like India. He remembered when this government took technology as a mission, it was questioned by the political leaders and certain types of experts. He added that today the country has also denied the thinking of those people, and has proved them wrong. Today the thinking of the country is different, it is new. Today we are seeing technology as a tool to help the poor, a tool for their progress.