Mumbai, January 6The Payments Council of India has welcomed the move by the Reserve Bank of India to facilitate small value digital payments in offline mode.

“The move will benefit the adoption of digital transactions in rural areas or where internet connectivity is erratic or unpredictable, and further provide impetus to offline digital payments,” it said in a statement on Thursday.The RBI had released the framework for small value digital payments in offline mode on January 3.

Vishwas Patel, PCI Chairman and Director, Infibeam Avenues, said: “These progressive moves by RBI will go a long way in further augmenting the payments ecosystem and enable further growth of digital payments across the country especially in rural areas.”

An offline digital payment would mean a transaction which does not require internet or telecom connectivity. The upper limit per transaction has been fixed at ₹200 while the overall limit for offline transactions through a particular channel has been set at ₹2,000 at any point in time.

T R Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa and Executive Council Member, PCI said this would open doors for deeper financial inclusion in the country. “Visa has recently piloted a Proof of Concept (POC) of how offline payments can happen through debit cards, which constitute a majority of cards issued today,” he further said.