QRs for e-Re retail, UPI to become interoperable

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Almost six months after launch central bank digital currency – electronic retail or retail resale, He is set to undergo his first major rehab.

e-Re Retail QR Codes and UPI (Unified Payments Interface) It may become interoperable in a few weeks from now. This means that merchants can receive payments made through e-Re Retail using the QR code already available for UPI. They do not have to purchase a separate QR code which is currently the practice for e-Re transactions.

That’s the thing National Payments Council of India (NPCI) And the Reserve Bank of India closely.

Also read: e-Re and You: What You Should Know

According to high-level sources, the official interoperability of e-Re and UPI QRs will be implemented in a few weeks. To start with such interoperability, it will only be applied at the front end, that is, at the point where the payment is received. On the back end, e-Re will follow a separate process and UPI will continue to operate in the current way it is in place. To put things in context, e-Re works on the bank wallet mechanism while UPI is directly linked to users’ bank accounts.

On the back end, even where interoperability exists, the payment made through UPI will be credited to the recipient’s UPI account, and the payment made through e-Re will go to the recipient’s wallet. Ultimately, both payment mechanisms will operate like independent entities.

Also read: BL Explainer: RBI’s e-Rupee vs. UPI

Why interoperability?

This upgrade to e-Re is critical to increasing merchant adoption of cryptocurrency. “Banks are trying to popularize and spread e-Re adoption among merchants because unless more merchants sign up and e-Re use case increases, adoption will remain weak,” said a banker familiar with the matter. Merchants’ adoption rate of UPI is healthy and steadily increasing and they already have QR stickers for various UPI portals. “We found that there was resistance from them to piling onto another QR sticker hence the decision to make UPI and e-Re QR codes interoperable.”

As per the latest published annual reports from RBI, the total e-Re adoption in the country is just around Rs 16.39 crore. Of this, the retail digital currency contribution was less than ₹6 crore.