How will users withdraw money from mobile wallets at ATMs?

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In a recent development, the Reserve Bank Of India allowed mobile wallet users to withdraw money from the ATMs. The move assumes significance since mobile wallets will now work like bank accounts. Although, mobile wallets do not have account numbers, but the prepaid instruments—mobile wallets—can become part of centralized payments systems: RTGS and NEFT, the RBI had said its latest monetary policy review.

The Central Bank, in 2018, had allowed interoperability of wallets. RBI laid down the rules for the same to happen. It had said that the interoperability will happen eventually in three stages, the first being, money transfer by mobile wallets through UPI. This feature is nor being used widely in this era of digital transactions.

The second stage was transferring money to bank accounts via UPI. And in the last phase, mobile wallets will be allowed to issue cards.

As per the RBI, this is the final stage which requires the wallets to issue a prepaid card to their customers, so that they can withdraw money from the ATM or can also swipe the card at merchant stores.

According to a report released by eMarketer, India had 73.9 million mobile wallets users till 2019. This is a huge number. With the government’s aim of digital India, this step will attract more and more users within the country as now, users can withdraw money from the ATMs as well.