BHIM Digital Payments App has Bugs, Not Bucks

Digital payments app BHIM has become the top app on Google Play Store in India and over 5 lakh transactions have been made by the users so far, Niti Ayog CEO Amitabh Kant said.

"Bhim App - 3 million download since launch, No 1 on Play Store in India amongst all apps, over 500,000 transactions since launch. #MakeinIndia," Kant said in a tweet.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the BHIM app on December 30 to enable fast and secure cashless transactions through mobile phones.

Named after the architect of the Indian Constitution and Dalit icon, Babasaheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar, the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) has been developed by National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI). It is supported by all the major banks, including State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Bank of India, Canara Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Punjab National Bank, to name a few.

The app is currently available in Hindi and English, and support for more languages is expected soon.

The app is interoperable with other Unified Payment Interface (UPI) applications and bank accounts.

How does it work?

The app is pretty simple and a user has to register by adding his mobile number linked to his bank account. Once the setup is done, they can make payments, transfer and receive money directly to and from their bank account.

So far there are 31 banks live on BHIM via UPI and transactions are limited to Rs 10,000 per transaction and up to Rs 20,000 per day. However, a user with more than one bank account will not be able to link other accounts to the app as it supports a single bank account per user.

Users can also make payments via bank IFSC and MMID codes if the bank does not support UPI. The app is available only on Android for now and an iOS app is expected soon.

Issues

Users have complained about multiple crashes while opening the app and many have vented out their frustration for no support for other languages.

After opening the app and registering my language of choice the app asks for verifying my mobile number and once I click on Let’s Get Started button I receive Device Binding Failed message. I have been trying it since yesterday and so far it has not worked and other users have reported the same problem.

The app is very new so there are a lot of bugs and the server response is pretty slow. Many users have also reported that they faced problems while generating OTP multiple times.

BHIM app will find it hard to make inroads in the digital wallet market as Paytm is already going strong and people are not going to switch to this app anytime soon.