Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today announced the Union Budget 2017-18. He has announced two new schemes for BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) app in a bid to increase its adoption.
The Finance Minister revealed that BHIM app is being used by over 1.25 crore people. The government will launch two new scheme to promote the use of the BHIM app. One will be referral payments for individuals, and the other will cashback for merchants who accept payments from BHIM. Jaitley has also set up a target of 2,500 crore digital transactions for 2017-18 through UPI, USSD, Aadhar Pay, IMPS and debit card. The budget also proposed to create a Payments Regulatory Board in the Reserve Bank of India by replacing the existing Board for Regulation and Supervision of Payment and Settlement Systems.
In addition, he also announced that Aadhaar Pay, a merchant version of Aadhaar Enabled Payment System, will be launched shortly. The Aadhaar Pay service will enable people to make and receive payments using their Aadhaar number and biometrics. This will be specifically beneficial for those who do not have debit cards, mobile wallets and mobile phones. Banks have targeted to introduce additional 10 lakh new POS terminals by March 2017. They will be encouraged to introduce 20 lakh Aadhar based POS by September 2017.
Moreover, Jaitely announced that there will be no service tax on digital rail bookings done through IRCTC- the online ticketing portal of Indian Railways. Also, this is the first time that Railway Budget has been announced along with Union Budget.