Promote BHIM app among small businesses, Haryana tells banks

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 16

This festive season could be taxing for banks employees posted even in the remote branches of Haryana as the Centre has given them a task to convince over 4.7 lakh small businessmen by this Diwali to use government-promoted mobile payment app, BHIM.  

Focus will be on districts such as Nuh, Charkhi Dadri, Fatehabad, Sirsa, Palwal and Mahendergarh because they lag in adoption of the digital payment mode as compared to districts like Gurugram, Faridabad and Karnal. BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi around two years ago.

The Haryana government has directed 4,728 bank branches operating in the state to promote BHIM app. Each branch has been asked to convince 100 business outlets in their respective areas. The target is to get BHIM operationalised in 4,72,800 mobiles of small businesses, banking sources said. 

Besides BHIM, there are many cashless options available in the market such as PayTm, PhonePe and PayWiz. A BHIM customer can send and receive money. He can scan and pay and also check transaction history and view his bank account through the app.

After the demonetisation, mobile wallets and payment apps became popular means for cashless transactions. In the due course, however, BHIM lagged behind as compared to its private sector rivals. Nimble private firms tied up with cab operators, vegetable vendors and kirana stores to expand their networks.

Last month, Haryana chief secretary DS Dhesi advised bankers to allocate the target to each bank operating in the state in proportion to their total branches, sources said. It was also discussed to promote Rupay card for cashless transactions. There are over 51.70 lakh activated Rupay cards in the state.

"The controlling heads of banks are requested to allocate a target of 100 small business persons per branch for activating BHIM app and promotion of Rupay Card for performing cashless transaction," said Alok Srivastava, Zonal manager, Punjab National Bank.

In the first quarter of 2018-19, the total digital transactions in the state through USSD, UPI and BHIM apps were 68.61 lakh, involving Rs 1,167 crore. Overall, the total number of digital transactions through all channels were 9.68 crore, involving Rs 1,41,698 crore. There has been a surge in the number of PoS machines since demonetisation. The state currently has 64,505 PoS machines.

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile while USSD (unstructured supplementary service data) platform or NUUP is a mobile banking service based on USSD and applicable for feature phone.

Digital transactions are, however, a cumbersome process for people as they face several challenges, including security issues, absence of reliable data connectivity and poor knowledge of the operational aspects of the apps.

Digital transactions in Haryana

Total bank branches 4,728

Targeted BHIM app users   4,72,800

Transactions by govt apps (Q1 of 2018-19)

Total transactions 68.61 lakh

Amount involved Rs 1,167 crore

.