RBI to geotag payments to increase the reach of digital payments

Deepening digital payments penetration across the country is a priority area for financial inclusion, the RBI said adding that the technology will help identify areas where the payment acceptance infrastructure has not taken off.

This is in line with the government's target of achieving a balanced spread of acceptance infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country.

 "In this regard, geo-tagging technology, by providing location information on an ongoing basis, can be useful in targeting areas with deficient infrastructure for focussed policy action," the RBI said.

The RBI had set-up a Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) to encourage deployment and strengthening of payments acceptance infrastructure and create additional touchpoints.

Accordingly, it is proposed to lay down a framework for geo-tagging (capturing geographical coordinates -, viz., latitude and longitude) of physical payment acceptance infrastructure, viz., Point of Sale (PoS) terminals, Quick Response (QR) codes, etc., used by merchants, RBI stated.

"This would complement the PIDF framework by better deployment of acceptance infrastructure and wider access to digital payments," the apex bank said, adding that necessary instructions will be issued separately.