BBPS Terms and Conditions
Last Updated: February 2, 2023
1.1 These BBPS Terms and Conditions (hereinafter “BBPS TnCs” or “the Agreement“) shall govern the provision of BBPOU Services by PayU Payments Private Limited, a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956, having its registered office at 801, 8th Floor, Empressa Building, 2nd Road, Khar West, Mumbai 400052, Maharashtra and corporate office at 9th Floor, Bestech Business Tower, Sector 48, Sohna Road, Gurgaon-122002, Haryana (“theCompany“/ “PayU“) to the user(s) of BBPOU Services (“User(s)“/ “You“/ “Your“). Whenever the context requires “User“/ “You“/ “Your” shall mean any natural or legal person who is a resident of India, at least 18 (eighteen) years of age who is eligible to contract within the meaning of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 and is not an undischarged insolvent.
1.2 Reserve Bank of India (“RBI“) has mandated the implementation of Bharat BillPay as an integrated bill payment system in the country which offers interoperable and accessible bill payment services with a single brand image through a network of agents as well as digital and online channels, enabling multiple payment modes and providing convenience of ‘anytime anywhere’ bill payment facility to customers and general public. Customers can make various payments towards various categories of bills including utility bill payments such as electricity, water, gas, DTH, telecom services, school / university fees, municipal taxes/ payments, and other bills as decided from time to time by the RBI.
1.3 National Payments Corporation of India (“NPCI“) has been authorized by RBI to act as the Bharat Bill Payment Central Unit (“BBPCU“) and is responsible for setting business standards, rules and procedures for technical and business requirements for all participants. The BBPCU undertakes clearing and settlement activities related to transactions routed through the BBPS.
1.4 Bharat BillPay Operating Units (“BBPOUs“) are authorised by RBI to function as operational units under BBPS to function in accordance with the procedural guidelines, standards, circulars and notifications set by the BBPCU. BBPOUs are authorised to handle both ON-US bills, that is, bills in respect of which the relative biller and payment collecting agent or outlet or channel belong to the same BBPOU, and OFF-US bills, that is, bills where the relative biller and payment collecting agent or outlet or channel belong to separate BBPOUs. Clearing and settlement of OFF-US transactions pertaining to bill payments involving more than one BBPOU is carried out by the BBPCU in the settlement accounts of BBPOU maintained with RBI.
1.5 PayU has been authorised by RBI to function as a BBPOU in accordance with extant rules and procedures. The BBPOU Services are governed by the BBPS Procedural Guidelines issued by NPCI, available at https://www.npci.org.in/PDF/npci/bbp/Bharat%20Bill%20Payment%20System-Procedural%20Guidelines%20Ver%201.1_0.pdf and all other rules and procedures as applicable and in existence or in force from time to time and any modification through any circular, order, direction, notice, instruction issued from time to time by BBPCU or RBI.
1.6 The Company reserves the right at any time and from time to time, at its sole discretion, to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, in part or in whole, the BBPOU Services. You agree that the Company shall not be liable to You or to any third party for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of the Service.
1.7 By proceeding to avail the BBPOU Services You signify Your consent to be bound by these BBPS TnCs in addition to agreeing to the PayU Terms and Conditions (“PayU TnCs“) located at https://payu.in/tnc and PayU’s Privacy Policy (“PayU Privacy Policy“) located at https://payu.in/privacy-policy. The Company reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to change, modify, add or remove portions of the BBPS TnCs, at any time without any prior written notice to You. It is Your responsibility to review the BBPS TnCs periodically for updates / changes. Your continued use of BBPOU Services following the posting of changes will mean that You accept and agree to the revisions including additional Terms or removal of portions of these Terms, modifications etc.
2.1 The term “Merchants“/ “Billers” refers to any establishment and/or entity onboarded on the BBPS via one or more BBPOUs to enable such Biller to receive payments via third party channels for the services rendered to the customer. However, in the context of BBPS TnCs, the term Biller may refer to Billers on-boarded by PayU.
2.2 The term “Agent institutions” refers to the institutions on-boarded by a BBPOU for the purposes of collection of bill payments.
2.3 The term “Agent” refers to persons/entities acting as customer touch points and service points in the form of branch offices, collection centers and outlets for the collection of bill payments through various modes. Agents may be on-boarded either directly by a BBPOU or by Agent Institutions. Agents on-boarded by Agent Institutions are also referred to as Sub-agents.
2.4 The term “BharatBillPaymentSystem“/ “BBPS” refers to the payment system operated by NPCI having a tiered structure for operating the bill payment system in India with a single brand image providing convenience of ‘anytime anywhere’ bill payment to customers.
2.5 The term “BBPOU Services” refers to any of the following services offered by a BBPOU:
1. On-boarding of Billers and aggregators as per standards / rules, appointment of agents; carrying out due diligence (as per processes and rules set out for appointment of sub-agents); and ensuring that confidentiality and privacy standards are in place;
2. Infrastructure development – Application development, including creation of APIs where required, by respective BBPOUs – in adherence to standards set by the BBPCU;
3. Transaction handling – Safety and security of transactions, verification of Biller information, adherence to transaction flow standards / rules set by the BBPCU;
4. Handling customer grievances and disputes as per set procedures and standards for Billers / Agents / end-customers; and
5. Value-added services – providing MIS and other relevant reports to the Billers / aggregators / Agents.
3.1 Users may note that PayU is only a facilitator of payments and is not a party to any bill payment transactions.
3.2 PayU facilitates the payment of bills in relation to services rendered by the Billers, through the BBPS where the Merchant is registered with the PayU for bill payments. The bill payments can be made through the Agents/Agent Institutions on-boarded by any of the BBPOUs.
3.3 The Company shall not be responsible for any delays/ reversals or failures of transactions.
4.1 In order to make the recharge or bill payments, You will have to provide the Agent/Agent Institution the unique customer identity/ subscription identity number or bill number or registered mobile number, registered telephone number or such other identifier(s) which are required to fetch the payment/subscription due or bill value, subscription plan, due date, outstanding amount due and such other information necessary to enable the payment to Your account with the Biller.
4.2 You need to authorize the Agent/Agent Institution to access, fetch, share, use, store the information related to Your account with the Biller of BBPOU on an ongoing basis on Your behalf for the said purposes.
4.3 You understand that correctness of information is of utmost importance for fetching the right bill and subscription value and You accordingly confirm to ensure and be responsible for the correctness of the identifier information.
4.4 You understand that the amount to be paid, recharged or subscription value is an agreement between You and the Biller and neither the Company nor the Agents/Agent Institution will have any obligation to verify the correctness of the same.
4.5 You agree to keep Your account information up to date and comply with BBPS TnCs at all times.
4.6 You agree that for providing the BBPOU Services the User identifier data, location/state and/or KYC information / any other personal information would be required to be shared with the Biller.
4.7 You agree and authorize the Company to communicate with the Biller, third party service providers etc. with Your account information for processing any Bill Payment transaction.
4.8 You shall be responsible for any penalty/ interest levied by the Biller on the Bill payments made.
4.9 Settlement Timelines and Payment to Billers. For ON-US transactions PayU shall complete the settlement of transactions with its Billers not later than ‘T+1’ working day (‘T’ being the transaction date), irrespective of the mode of payment used by the consumer for making a payment. For OFF-US transactions, NPCI is to carry out the settlement of transactions on a ‘T+1’ (working) day basis (‘T’ being the transaction date), irrespective of the mode of payment used by the consumer for making a payment to the customer BBPOU, and PayU shall not have any liability with regard to timelines of settlement for OFF-US transactions. On completion of the settlement, payments to the Billers for all OFF-US transactions are expected to be made within one day i.e. ‘S+1’ (‘S’ being the settlement date). The Company shall not be liable for any delay in settlements caused due to circumstances which are beyond the reasonable control of the Company.
4.10 Reversals. For the Billers activated on real-time mode with a BBPOU, it is expected that bill fetch will take place in real-time mode and payment success confirmation will be given to the Biller in real-time. As per the BBPS transaction message specifications, the recipient is required to send an acknowledgement message to the sender of a message. Failure to receive an acknowledgement from any participant in BBPS for a bill payment transaction will result in a reversal where the entire transaction will be reversed and an intimation will be sent to the origination point to return the amount to the customer through the same payment mode.
4.11 Upon successful completion of a bill payment, an instant confirmation of bill payment would be provided to You.
4.12 Refunds would be handled by the Billers directly with the customer outside the BBPS. The same will be updated in the BBPS by Biller BBPOU.
5.1 Neither PayU nor the Agents/Agent Institutions charge any fee in relation to payment of bills. The bill amount is solely determined by the concerned Biller and may include late fees etc. as per terms agreed between the end customer and the Biller.
6.1 You may register a complaint regarding any Bill payment transaction through the relevant Agent Institution’s application/website or at PayU’s complaint registration portal available at https://bbps.payu.in/#/main/complaintreg.
6.2 The Agents shall assist You in relation to Your grievance and other transactional complaints.
6.3 The complaints are assigned for resolution by NPCI. PayU shall act on a complaint if such complaint is assigned to PayU for resolution by NPCI on the CMS dashboard.
6.4 The complaints registered through PayU’s website will also be handled by the PayU team. PayU team shall categorize the complaints and deal with them appropriately and transparently as per its internal policies.
6.5 The TAT for resolution of a complaint is ‘y’ business days from the day of settlement of the transaction. The complaint once lodged would be assigned to the customer BBPOU (i.e., the BBPOU which handled the bill payment of the customer) immediately based on the transaction identifier. The customer BBPOU is expected to resolve the complaint within ‘y’ business days or assign the complaint to the Biller BBPOU (i.e., the BBPOU which onboarded the relevant Biller) for action at their end within ‘y1’ business days. Biller BBPOU will have to resolve the complaint within ‘y2’ business days of customer BBPOU assigning the complaint. The assignee BBPOU may seek additional information from the assignor BBPOU while the complaint is pending for resolution. Request for additional information shall not in any way extend the TAT for the respondent which is ‘y2’ business days. The value of ‘y’, ‘y1’ and ‘y2’ will be as published by NPCI and the sum of ‘y1’ and ‘y2’ will not exceed ‘y’. As on date of the publication of these BBPS TnCs, the TAT, that is ‘y’ is 5 business days.
6.6 You may also reach out to us via–
Telephone: +91 124 6624998
Email: production.support@payu.in
7.1 In connection with Your use of the BBPOU Services, it shall be Your responsibility to adhere to the following:
1. You should verify the transaction history and/or the notifications about the success or failure of the transaction.
2. You shall be responsible for any charges levied by the Biller in relation to Your bill.
3. You shall be responsible for keeping a track of Your periodic bills, subscription fee and recharge expiries and or due dates of any utilities/ services or recurring charge services that You have availed and the Company shall not be responsible for any technical issue related to retrieval of the bills from the Billers/BBPS or any errors / discrepancies in the Bills.
4. You are responsible for maintaining confidentiality of the account details/ credentials for using the BBPOU Services and You shall be fully responsible for all transactions undertaken through your account. You are strongly advised to not disclose Your account details/ credentials to any person (including any person purporting to be a representative or employee of PayU).
8.1 If You erroneously send a payment to the wrong party or wrong Biller or make duplicate payments or send a payment for the wrong amount (for instance a typographical error at Your end), Your only recourse will be to contact the Biller /party to whom You have sent the payment and ask them to refund the amount. PayU will not reimburse You or reverse a payment that You have erroneously made.
9.1 You agree that all risks arising from online transactions will be borne by You.
9.2 The Company makes no warranty, express or implied regarding the quality of BBPOU Services including but not limited to: i) that the Services will meet Your requirements; ii) that the BBPOU Services will be uninterrupted, timely or error free; or iii) that any products, information or material obtained by You in connection with the BBPOU Services will meet Your requirements.
9.3 Except as expressly provided herein and to the full extent permitted by law, BBPOU Services are being provided by PayU on an “as is”, “as available” and “with all faults” basis. All warranties, representations, conditions, undertakings and terms, whether express or implied, are hereby expressly excluded. It is Your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness and usefulness of the BBPOU Services and other information provided by the Company. We do not authorize anyone to make any warranty on our behalf and You should not rely on any such statement.
10.1 These BBPS TnCs, and any rights and licenses granted hereunder, may not be transferred or assigned by You. We may assign, in whole or in part, the benefits or obligations of this Agreement. We will provide an intimation of such assignment to You, which will be binding on the parties to these BBPS TnCs.
11.1 We will not be liable for failure to perform under these BBPS TnCs as a result of any event that is beyond the reasonable control of PayU including, without limitation, events of force majeure such as acts of god, fire, wars, sabotage, civil unrest, labour unrest, network disruptions or failures, action of statutory authorities or local or state, central governments, change in laws, rules and regulations, affecting our performance.
12.1 Unless otherwise expressly stated in these BBPS TnCs, PayU’s failure to exercise or delay in exercising a right or remedy under the BBPS TnCs will not constitute a waiver of PayU’s right or remedy or a waiver of any other rights or remedies of PayU, and no single or partial exercise of any right or remedy of PayU under the BBPS TnCs will prevent any further exercise of the right or remedy or the exercise of any other right or remedy.
13.1 The terms and provisions of the BBPS TnCs that by their nature and intent are intended to survive the termination hereof will so survive the termination of this Agreement.
14.1 If any provision of the BBPS TnCs is or becomes, in whole or in part, invalid or unenforceable but would be valid or enforceable if some part of that provision was deleted, that provision will be deemed to apply with such deletions as may be necessary to make it valid. If any court/tribunal of competent jurisdiction holds any of the provisions of the BBPS TnCs unlawful or otherwise ineffective, the remainder of these BBPS TnCs will remain in full force and the unlawful or otherwise ineffective provision will be substituted by a new provision reflecting the intent of the provision so substituted.
15.1 You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless PayU, our independent contractors, and our directors, employees and agents, from and against any claims, damages, costs, liabilities and expenses (including, but not limited to, reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to:
1. any actual or alleged breach of these BBPS TnCs or any other terms, policies or guidelines provided by Us;
2. any actual or alleged violation of applicable laws by You;
3. Your wrongful or improper use of the BBPOU Services; or
4. Your violation of the rights of any third party.
16.1 In no event shall we, our directors, employees or agents, be liable to You for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, punitive, special or exemplary damages or for any damages of any kind, including but not limited to loss of use, loss of profits or loss of data, whether in an action in contract, tort (including but not limited to negligence) or otherwise, arising out of or in any way connected with the use or inability to use the BBPOU Services, including without limitation any damages caused by or resulting from reliance by You on any information obtained from us or that result from mistakes, omissions, interruptions, deletion of files, errors, defects, viruses, delays in operation or transmission or any failure of performance, whether or not resulting from acts of god, communications failure, theft, destruction or unauthorized access to our records, programs or services.
16.2 In no event shall our aggregate liability, whether in contract, warranty, tort (including negligence, whether active, passive or imputed), product liability, strict liability or other theory, arising out of or relating to the use or inability to use the BBPOU Services exceed any fee that You pay to us to access or use the BBPOU Services.
16.3 Your liability:Except as otherwise provided by law, You will be liable for any loss or damage resulting from Your breach of this Agreement, Your negligence, or which resulted from unauthorized, fraudulent, or dishonest acts by others (other than Us).
16.4 Some jurisdictions do not allow limitations on implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain damages. If these laws apply, some or all of the above disclaimers, exclusions or limitations may not apply. You agree that, if You are dissatisfied with the BBPOU Services or any portion thereof, Your exclusive remedy shall be to stop using the BBPOU Services.
17.1 This Agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of India. You agree that any legal action or proceedings arising out of this Agreement may be brought exclusively in the competent courts/tribunals having jurisdiction in New Delhi in India and You irrevocably submit to the jurisdiction of such courts / tribunals.