FASTag: RBI Allows Toll Payments Using UPI, Prepaid Wallets

On Monday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that it will allow additional modes of payments to be linked to FASTag accounts in order to give more payment choices to customers and maintain competition among participants of the system.

In a notification titled "Enhancing facilitation of National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) system" released on Monday, RBI said, "Currently, the NETC system allows linking of FASTags with bank accounts - savings, current and prepaid. In order to further broad base this system by allowing more payment choices for the customers, as well as for fostering competition among the system participants, all authorised payment systems and instruments [non-bank PPIs, cards and Unified Payments Interface (UPI)] shall from now be permitted for linking with the FASTags, which can be used for various types of payments (vehicle toll, parking fee, etc.)"

"The transactions in the NETC system can be performed without any Additional Factor of Authentication (AFA) and / or pre-transaction notification / alert. NPCI shall facilitate requests received from banks / non-banks in this regard," it further said.

FASTag is an initiative introduced by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) in association with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for making automated payment deductions at toll plazas using prepaid rechargeable tags that work on RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology.

Normally affixed to the vehicle's windscreen, a FASTag enables payment of toll with just a momentary slowdown. When the vehicle reaches the toll plaza, a reader will detect the chip on the tag and deduct the toll amount from the bank account or prepaid wallet linked to the FASTag.