NPCI announces that the BHIM app has crossed 16 million installs and has an active user base of four million

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has announced that the **BHIM app** has crossed 16 million installs, with an active user base of four million. These are the usage statistics as of the end of June 2017 for iOS and Android, the two platforms that the app is available on. The BHIM app offers a simple and easy interface for making cashless transactions through UPI and other common payment methods supported by banks. The app makes the payments directly to and from the bank accounts and is not a mobile wallet. [caption id=“attachment_3866037” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Image: NPCI[/caption] AP Hota, Managing Director and CEO of NPCI said, “Transactions via BHIM App is witnessing growth with each passing month since its launch by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on December 30, 2016. Download numbers breaching 16 million mark is a remarkable achievement towards digital transactions and creating a less-cash society.” Along with the launch of **BHIM-Aadhaar** app for using biometric data to authenticate cashless transactions, the NPCI also introduced a referral bonus scheme to encourage new users to use the application. Both the referrer and the referee get rewarded for new application installs. Once a new user has executed at least three transactions totalling at least Rs 50, the referrer gets Rs 10 and the referee gets Rs 25. The scheme has an outlay of Rs 495 crore for a six-month period. Currently, version 1.3 of the BHIM app is live on the stores, and the NPCI has indicated that version 1.4 will be dropping soon.