India: BPCL offers digital payment to non-Internet users

The oil company has become the first player in the local industry to offer this option to drivers and customers through a voice-based digital payment system.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) now offers customers the option of paying without the need of having Internet access. BharatGas consumers can book their LPG cylinders by a new voice-based digital payment option.

Thanks to a partnership with UltraCash Technologies, customers who don’t have smart phones or Internet can book their cylinders and make the payment through the ‘UPI 123PAY’ system recently launched by the Government. With the introduction of this technology, around 4 crore consumers of BharatGas in rural India will stand to benefit.

“India still has a vast majority of feature phone users. Further even in urban areas many users are looking for fully secure ways of digital payments. With the Government of India also promoting usage of LPG through schemes like Ujjwala yojana, this facility will help in further penetrating into rural markets. Though this service can be used by all, it is primarily meant for non-feature phone users but ease and security of payments of UPI123PAY will make it popular across all segments and users,” said Shri Santosh Kumar, Executive Director of BPCL.

BPCL has become the first company in India to offer their service to consumers after the Reserve Bank of India’s Governor announced the launch of UPI 123PAY at the beginning of March. This initiative lets users who don’t have a cellphone access the payment service through their landline phones. According to an official press release from the RBI published by local news site The Telegraph of India, this will enable the country’s 40 million landline users to perform P2P payments, utility bill payments, FASTag recharge and also pay mobile bills.

“We are extremely excited to partner with BPCL on this amazing journey of bringing in the next set of customers into the digital revolution. This path breaking initiative by RBI & NPCI, allows customers to Pay and Book in the simplest form of voice call,” added Shri Vishal Lal, Co-Founder UltraCash.

UltraCash is a mobile payment application developed by UltraCash Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and authorised by National Payment Corporation of India. The collaboration with Ultra Cash enables BharatGas customers to call the common number 080 4516 3554 from a non-internet phone and book BharatGas cylinder for themselves or for their friends in easy steps in a secured manner.