On Wednesday, the Reserve Bank of India allowed credit cards to be linked to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which will enable more people to make payments using the popular platform. UPI facilitates transactions by connecting a user’s debit card to a savings or checking account.

“It is proposed to allow the linking of credit cards with UPI,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said when announcing the regulatory move and the bi-monthly policy review.

He said the facility will start with the RBI-promoted RuPay credit card issued by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and will be available after the system is developed.

Das said the new arrangement is expected to provide more channels and convenience for customers to pay through the UPI platform.

He added that UPI had become India’s most inclusive payment method, with over 26 crore unique users and five crore merchants on the platform.

In May, the transaction amount was Rs 594.63 crore, and the total amount was around Rs 5 million. Rs 10,40,000 crore was processed through UPI, Das said.

Das said that the interoperability of the prepaid payment facility (PPI) would also help PPIs access the UPI payment system for transactions.