BHIM Payments App

BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) is an Indian mobile payments application built on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella organization for retail payments in India that operates under the guidance of the Reserve Bank of India. The app was launched in late 2016, shortly after the Indian government's demonetization drive, as a flagship tool to push the country toward digital, cashless transactions. It is named after B. R. Ambedkar's initials and is positioned as a simple, publicly backed payment app rather than a commercial wallet. BHIM lets users link their bank accounts and send or receive money directly between bank accounts using a virtual payment address (VPA) or mobile number, without needing to share account details. It supports person-to-person transfers, merchant payments via QR codes, and bill payments, and it works across banks that participate in UPI. Because it is built on UPI, BHIM is interoperable with other UPI apps, and it served as an early reference implementation of the UPI standard. As a product brand, BHIM sits within the NPCI family alongside the UPI rail itself and other NPCI offerings such as RuPay and IMPS. It is not a listed company; it is a public-interest digital payments platform backed by NPCI and the Indian state. Its positioning emphasizes accessibility, simplicity, and financial inclusion, particularly for first-time digital payment users. Over time, BHIM's consumer usage has been overtaken by private UPI apps, but it remains a symbol of India's public digital payments infrastructure and is still maintained and promoted by NPCI.

BHIM was developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and launched in December 2016, in the aftermath of the Indian government's demonetization of high-value currency notes. The move created an urgent push toward digital payments, and BHIM was introduced as a simple, publicly backed app built on the newly rolled-out Unified Payments Interface (UPI). It was named using the initials of B. R. Ambedkar, and it was promoted as a national digital payments tool. The app allowed users to link bank accounts and transact using a virtual payment address or mobile number, and it supported both person-to-person and merchant payments. As an early UPI reference app, BHIM helped demonstrate and popularize the UPI standard, which later became the backbone of India's retail digital payments. NPCI continued to develop the UPI ecosystem, and BHIM remained one of several apps riding that rail. Over the following years, private UPI apps gained far larger consumer bases, and BHIM's share of UPI transaction volumes declined. Nonetheless, BHIM remained part of NPCI's public payments portfolio and continued to be maintained as a government-backed option. Its history is closely tied to India's broader shift to interoperable, account-to-account digital payments.

• BHIM app launched by NPCI on the UPI platform in December 2016.

Public-interest, government-backed UPI payments app focused on simplicity and financial inclusion.

• BHIM UPI app

  Mobile app for UPI-based bank-to-bank transfers, merchant QR payments, and bill payments.

1. 1BHIM Payments App partners with Goonj for ‘Meethi Diwali’ campaignadgully.com
2. 2NPCI arm rolls out Tatkal NPS, allows opening pension account via UPIprokerala.com