THE BHIM APP

Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) is an initiative to enable fast, secure, reliable cashless payments through your mobile phone. BHIM is interoperable with other Unified Payment Interface (UPI) applications, and bank accounts. BHIM is developed by the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI). BHIM is made in India and dedicated to the service of the nation.

How does it work?
Register your bank account with BHIM, and set a UPI PIN for the bank account. Your mobile number is your payment address (PA), and you can simply start transacting. Yes! It is that simple.

Send / Receive Money: Send money to or receive money from friends, family and customers through a mobile number or payment address. Money can also be sent to non UPI supported banks using IFSC and MMID. You can also collect money by sending a request and reverse payments if required.

Check Balance: You can check your bank balance and transactions details on the go.

Custom Payment Address: You can create a custom payment address in addition to your phone number.

QR Code: You can scan a QR code for faster entry of payment addresses. Merchants can easily print their QR Code for display.

Transaction Limits: Maximum of Rs. 10,000 per transaction and Rs. 20,000 within 24 hours.

Language supported: Hindi and English. More languages coming soon!

BHIM requires permission to your Phone Calls & SMS to verify your phone number.

Updated

January 4, 2017

Installs

5,000,000 -16,50,000 (approx)

Current Version

1.1

Offered By

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)

Supported Banks: 
- Allahabad Bank 
- Andhra Bank
- Axis Bank 
- Bank of Baroda
- Bank of India 
- Bank of Maharashtra
- Canara Bank
- Catholic Syrian Bank 
- Central Bank of India
- DCB Bank 
- Dena Bank
- Federal Bank 
- HDFC Bank
- ICICI Bank 
- IDBI Bank 
- IDFC Bank 
- Indian Bank 
- Indian Overseas Bank 
- IndusInd Bank
- Karnataka Bank 
- Karur Vysya Bank 
- Kotak Mahindra Bank 
- Oriental Bank of Commerce 
- Punjab National Bank 
- RBL Bank 
- South Indian Bank 
- Standard Chartered Bank
- State Bank of India 
- Syndicate Bank 
- TJSB
- UCO Bank
- Union Bank of India 
- United Bank of India
- Vijaya Bank
- Yes Bank Ltd

The app is a rebranded version of UPI (Unified Payment Interface) and USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data).

The app will eliminate fee payments for service providers like card companies such as Mastercard or Visa was widely seen as a big stumbling block for merchants switching to digital payments. This app is expected to make it affordable for merchants in remote villages.

The BHIM app is supposed to support Aadhaar-based payments, where transactions will be possible with just a fingerprint impression

3 million customers in just 5 days.

Not just another mobile wallet

HOW IS IT POSING THREAT TO PAYTM

The app takes on the likes of Paytm, Mobikwik, Freecharge and other mobile payment apps which have become hugely popular since the government announced banning of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes on November 8.

The new app is expected to minimise the role of plastic cards and the point of sale (PoS) machines said to be the essential tools for a cashless society.

You can store a limited amount of money in a mobile wallet like Paytm or MobiKwik, which you can send only to someone who is using the same wallet. But BHIM is UPI-based, and thus linked directly to a bank account. All the payee needs is a bank account. If this account is UPI activated, you can just ask for the payee’s VPA or virtual payment address, and make the payment to that account.

The advantage is there’s no need to remember an account number, or to share it with anyone. The VPA is all that is needed. Up to Rs 10,000 can be sent per transaction, and up to Rs 20,000 in any 24 hours.

verified your mobile number. You get an SMS, so it’s best to use the same number as the one that’s linked to the bank account.

BHIM will ask you to set a 4-digit passcode.(easy to remember).

If your account is UPI activated, it will reflect the relevant number. You’ll see options to send and receive money, and transact via IFSC. If UPI is not activated, you can put in six digits of your debit card number, and the expiry date, after which the app will let you use it.

the release of UPI would be bitter for mobile wallets. This is due to UPI being an open payments platform, where money can directly be transferred from one bank account to the another without any switching charges.

It also removes the fuss of pulling your money from your bank account to your mobile wallet and vice versa as mobile wallets are semi-closed payment systems. Further, bank-to-bank transfer makes the system more widely accepted, as opposed to the pain of tying up from merchant to merchant.

One app for all bank accounts:

BHIM leverages the power of UPI and USSD into one, which enables the user to optimally utilize single platform for all his cashless needs. Thus, if a user has bank accounts in three UPI enabled banks, then BHIM will converge all his banking activities, and enable him to conduct cashless transactions without hassles. The single @UPI payment address will protect his identity and personal details. The interoperability aspect makes it a big deal, compared to other e-wallets, which basically  replaces your physical wallet with a digital one. But BHIM directly connects the bank accounts with a safe platform, thereby saving you time and hassles of maintaining multiple wallets.

2. Internet Is Not Required:

One of the master-strokes of BHIM is that, it can be used without Internet. *99# program for conducting cashless transactions is being supported by BHIM, which makes it a deal-clencher. Only Paytm provides Internet-less cashless transactions, but that feature is not that robust, considering that you need Internet to link the bank accounts, and to infuse funds. But with BHIM, a non-smartphone user can transact from the word go.

3. Finger-print based cashless transactions:

Once the merchant connects a bio-metric device with his smartphone (after installing BHIM app), then he can easily accept payments from buyers by using their finger-print. The Aadhaar protocol kicks in here, as the fingerprint is directly matched from the main server, and the payment is done. This facility is right now not available on any e-wallet, which makes BHIM a superior technological product, compared to any other e-wallet. Rural citizens who are don’t even know how to read and write can easily, seamlessly pay via BHIM, using their bank account.

In a way, BHIM effortlessly connects the Aadhaar card, mobile phone and UPI/USSD technologies to provide a digital platform for making and receiving payments.

Till now, BHIM can be described as the Govt. biggest, most ambiguous project for promoting cashless payments.

In the coming days, it would be really interesting to observe how BHIM makes a dent in the market of Paytm, and other e-wallets.

While BHIM has all the benefits provided by other mobile wallets, the one big advantage is that the transactions happen directly from the bank accounts and there are no charges associated with transfers.

during peak times, users have been left stranded, unable to confirm payments made to the merchants. Users have found queries sent to update passbook to track transactions taking inordiantely long. Apart Paytm traced some of the flaws in its iOS app, used by less than 10% of its users, which impacted the platform at large. A new bug-free app has been released.

The problem at the retail end is mainly with small merchants: corner cigarette shops, fruit vendors, kirana stores. Regulations don’t allow merchants to take out more than ` 20,000 per month, while they need money to manage daily cash flows. Says one merchant in Bajrang market, Greater Noida, “I sold `2 lakh worth of goods in one week. But I can withdraw only `20,000 a month. And that after standing hours in long queues. It’s impacted my business and now I don’t accept Paytm.”

​from the spike in fraud, some users reported money disappearing at the time of loading wallets.