New Delhi, June 26: The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has clarified that Google Pay is not banned in India. The clarification came as the hashtag "GPayBanned By RBI", accompanied by news that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that Google Pay was not a payments system operator, was trending on Twitter on Friday. To make things clear, the NPCI issued a statement, saying Google Pay is authorised and secure.

In its clarification, the NPCI stated: "We have come across some quotes on social media which suggest that transferring money through Google Pay is not protected by the law, since the app is unauthorised. RBI has authorised NPCI as a Payment System Operator (PSO) of UPI and NPCI in its capacity as PSO authorises all UPI participants. We would like to clarify that Google Pay is classified as Third Party App Provider (TPAP) that also provides UPI payment services like many others, working through banking partners and operating under the UPI framework of NPCI."

NPCI is an umbrella organization for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India. It concluded: "All transactions made using any of the authorized TPAPs are fully protected by the redressal processes laid out by applicable guidelines of NPCI/RBI and customers already have full access to the same. Further, we would also like to clarify that all authorised TPAP's are already bound by full compliance to all the regulations and applicable laws in India. UPI ecosystem is fully safe and secure, and we appeal to the citizens not to fall prey to such malicious news. We also request UPI customers not to share their OTP (one time password) and UPI Pin with anybody."

Here it may be noted that the RBI has been making submissions in the Delhi High Court in response to a PIL by financial economist Abhijit Mishra who has alleged that Google Pay enabled financial transactions without the authorisation from the central bank. In its recent response, the RBI stated the Google Pay does not operate any payment systems, and that is why its name is not in the list of authorised operators.

The central bank also told the Delhi High Court that for this reason, it is not in violation of the law. However, the trending hashtag "GPayBanned By RBI" ignores this line in the report and many have fallen prey to this misleading hashtag suggesting a ban on Google Pay in India.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 26, 2020 09:27 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).