Bill payment is a key component of retail transactions in India, with top cities generating INR 6,223 billion annually, mostly through cash or cheques. The current bill payment system is biller-specific and lacks an 'anytime, anywhere' payment option. Various organizations have aggregated billers to offer a unified payment platform, but there is a need for an integrated system. NPCI's Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) aims to provide this by offering interoperable, accessible bill payment services through a network of agents, multiple payment modes, and instant payment confirmation.

The objective of NPCI’s Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) is to implement an integrated bill payment system in the country that offers interoperable and accessible bill payment services to customers through a network of agents, enabling multiple payment modes, and providing instant confirmation of receipt of payment.

Customer Benefits

BBPS will offer the facility of “Anytime Anywhere” payment of bills, articipating on BBPS network, to customers through a network of agents.

It is expected to provide an accessible bill payment system to the large segments of unbanked and under-banked population.

BBPS will provide interoperability so that consumers can pay the bills of any biller at a single point and facilitate payments via multiple modes i.e. Cash, Debit Cards, Credit Cards, Prepaid payment instruments including wallets and other electronic payment options such as Net banking, IMPS, NEFT, etc.

The bill payment service points are expected to become ubiquitous, available to consumers near their place of work or residence.

The BBPS outlets could include bank branches, business correspondents, Customer Service Points, retail agents of aggregators, ATMs (Automated Teller Machine), Kiosks, etc. Any customer will be able to pay bills of the billers enrolled in the BBPS system at any BBPS outlet.

Benefits To Participant Bank

Will set up bill payment standards for the entire system and its participants in India.

Will be an efficient and convenient medium for customers and other stakeholders.

A number of value-added services relating to bills payments can be offered to consumers by the BBPOUs in course of time, subject to strict compliance with data privacy and security issues and standards. Will significantly reduce the systemic risks in collection and settlements.

Has the potential to reduce the expenditure that billers incur on collection of bills at their own collection centres.

Will lead to faster migration from assisted mode to self-service mode of payment and from cash payments to e-payment of bills.

Sarvatra BBPS Switch

Advantages Capabilities Architecture

Sarvatra will act as Agent Institution (Master Agent), thereby readily allowing banks to act as agents.

Liquidity Management will also be conducted by us for our agents.

both BBPS modules viz. Biller BBPOU and Customer BBPOU: Fetch Bill, Pay Bill, ON-US and OFF-US bill payments. Ad-hoc payments, bill payment and presentment, online bill payments and offline bill collections.

Centralized bill payment system for all delivery channels. Supports all delivery channels like Mobile Application, Net Banking and Agent / Agent Web-portals. Supports various methods for integration of channels.

Agent / Institution web portal for assisted bill pay service.

Out-of-the-box support for Transaction limits and Velocity rules, Transaction fees, Biller enrollment, Customer enrollment.

Support for online (message based) and offline (file based) interfaces for processing bill payments.

Advanced payment risk management via process transparency and access to data

Easy integration with legacy systems, payment networks, and proprietary technologies.

Long-term technology roadmap and payments migration strategy.

Supports both BBPS modules viz. Biller BBPOU and Customer BBPOU: Fetch Bill, Pay Bill, On-us and Off-us bill payments, Ad-hoc payments, bill payment and presentment, online bill payments and offline bill collections.

Supports all delivery channels like Mobile Application, Net Banking and Agent / Agent institution Web-portals. Supports various methods for integration of channels, viz. ISO8583, XML over TCP/IP, HTTP(S) (Plain/XML/JSON/REST/Web Services), Host-to-host file transfer (for bulk uploads, etc.).

Out-of-the-box support for :
Transaction limits and Velocity rules
Transaction fees
Biller enrolment
Customer enrolment
Agent / Agent institution Web-portals