The Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app is an initiative taken by The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to help India go cashless. Launched in 2016, the app has undergone many changes since, including the most recent performance improvements, bug fixes, and enhanced QR code scanning feature.
“BHIM is interoperable with other Unified Payment Interface (UPI) applications, & bank accounts for quick money transfers online,” reads the app description in the Google Play Store. The BHIM app helps to link new bank accounts with the Unified Payments Interface account, making transactions easier and hassle-free. The app that initially supported 21 banks has been updated over time; the latest update raises the number of banks supported by it to 67 and includes Paytm Payments Bank and Airtel Payments Bank. This means that the app will now allow Paytm Payments Bank and Airtel Payments Bank to become default bank accounts while sending or receiving money.
A user will see the option ‘Bank Account’ when opening the app. This option paves the way to three dots on the top right corner, clicking which a user can choose to ‘change bank account’. On clicking the ‘change bank account’ option and choosing to proceed, the user can choose a bank from a list of banks that will appear on the screen to set it as the default bank account. If the number of the phone from which the app is being operated is linked to an account in the default bank, the app will automatically fetch the account details for the user.
Apart from allowing users to access all their bank accounts from a single platform, the BHIM app also allows them to pay friends and relatives using their mobile number (provided they are also BHIM users), and pay any user using UPI applications. They can also use the app to shop and pay online, request money from any UPI user, scan a QR and pay on the fly, as well as check account balance and pay via Aadhaar number.
