Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the latest version of BHIM e-wallet app on Friday, as the government aggressively pursues a "less-cash" economy to combat the problem of black money and digitise the economy. Promoting the latest version BHIM 1.3, on the 126th birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, PM Modi said that the BHIM-Aadhaar platform would play the same role of empowering the common Indian as the Constitution of India, framed by Dr Ambedkar. To further incentivize Indians to make the switch to using the BHIM app for transacting business, PM Modi also launched two schemes - cash back for merchants and referral bonus for individual owners.
Here Are Some Of The Key Features Of BHIM:
1. BHIM, short for Bharat Interface for Money, enables its users to transfer money using their mobile phone. The app created a world record by registering 10 million downloads in just four months since its launch.
2. Under the new cashback scheme, the merchants will get a cashback on every transaction using BHIM. For every successful referral, users can earn Rs 10.
3. PM Modi declared on Friday that incentives totalling Rs. 495 crore will be given to merchants for accepting payments through BHIM and existing users for referring it to others.
4. Around 2 MB in size, the latest version of the app enables payments through a fingerprint scanner by authenticating biometric details of the user against the Aadhaar database.
5. The app is available in 12 languages with three new languages (Marathi, Punjabi and Assamese) added in BHIM 1.3.
6. The app, now allows users to transfer money to contacts saved on the phone. However, there's a cap of Rs 10,000 for a single transaction.
7. At present account holders of around 30 banks can transact on BHIM 1.3. The app will add Punjab And Maharashtra Co-Operative Bank Ltd, Punjab & Sind Bank and Jammu and Kashmir Bank soon, according to its Google Play Store page.
8. Unlike the United Payments Interface (UPI), BHIM users do not need to download mobile applications of multiple banks to transact with different banks.
9. Since the government's move on November 8 last year to demonetise Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes, the number of digital payment apps have logged a nearly 23-fold increase.
10. Developed by National Payments Corporation of India, BHIM aims pave the way for making payments using fingerprints or iris scanners.
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