Bill Payments FAQs

Log in to ICICI Bank Corporate Internet Banking (CIB) and follow the below path: Transfers & Bill Pay > Bill Payments > Multiple Bill Pay (Powered by BBPS).

Yes, an Agent-Institution can migrate from another one BBPOU to another by giving intimation to the BBPCU, well in advance.

Entities initially functioning as an Agent Institution may apply to the Reserve Bank of India, subject to meeting the eligibility criteria and application window being opened by RBI for the same.

Agents cannot further on-board sub-agents. If required, these sub-agents will have to be appointed directly through Agent Institutions.

The Payment modes that the Agent-Institution can offer are as follows:

1. Digital modes: Internet/Website, Internet Banking, mobile app, Mobile Banking, POS, MPOS, ATM, Kiosk.
2. Physical modes: Agents, Bank-Branch, Business Correspondent. The Agent-Institution must mandatorily offer its consumers bill payments through BBPS on all current modes where bill payment is offered.

Documentation requirements which need to be furnished with the respective BBPOU:

1. Business address authorisation letter and licence to carry on business.

3. Credibility check, Credential verification and Banker’s Opinion Report

4. ITR of last 2 years.

5. Financial Statements for at least 2 years/other credit verification/Background check/CIBIL verification of promoters and directors.

6. Should not be part of blacklist as and when introduced by BBPCU or any other competent authority.

No, an Agent Institution will get access to BBPS application module through maximum two designated BBPOUs only.

Create customer touch points, provide customer assistance (registration, Quickpay, complaint resolution), instant confirmation, awareness (payment and charges), BBPS brand visibility, etc.

Step-1: Connect with a Customer BBPOU of their choice.

Step-2: Complete documentation and on-boarding process with the selected BBPOU

Step-3: Get their modes like internet, mobile, branch or agents active under BBPS through the selected BBPOU.

1. Agent Institutions are the entities who wish to offer or those who are currently in the bill payment, collection and aggregation business, or who have not received in-principal approval from RBI.
2. These are the entities who could be on-boarded in the BBPS ecosystem by Customer BBPOUs.
3. Agent-Institutions may further on-board agents and/or set-up customer service points in various regions and locations.

Billers are the service providers who shall receive payments from customers for any services rendered. By participating in the BBPS scheme, the biller will be able to receive payments from third party channels for the services provided to the customer. The major category of billers would be many utility billers like electricity, telecom (post-paid), DTH, gas and water. Over a period of time school/university fees, municipal taxes, etc. would also be accepted. The category of billers eligible to participate in BBPS will be specified from time to time by the RBI.

Bharat Bill Payment Operating Unit (BBPOU) is the entity that is authorised by the Reserve Bank of India. It can be a bank or non-bank. BBPOU (bank or non-bank) may choose to integrate either with the customers (COU: Customer OU) or with the billers (Biller OU) or may wish to participate as both – which means that such a BBPOU will be integrated with customers as well as billers. Going forward, only authorised BBPOU - both banks and non-banks authorised by RBI - can handle payment and aggregation of payment services relating to bills under the scope of BBPS.

Agents are the customer touch points and service points in the BBPS Ecosystem which will be available in the following forms: Branch Offices, Collection Centres, Retail Outlets and other Service Points. An Agent would be the sole touch-point for customers to walk in any outlet/service point with BBPS Logo and make a bill payment.

Agents can accept bill payments through various modes. Agents may be on-boarded either directly by BBPOU or by Agent Institutions to offer BBPS services.

NPCI has been authorised by RBI as the Bharat Bill Payment Central Unit (BBPCU), which is responsible for settling 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 BBPS.

BBPS transactions can be initiated through multiple payment channels like Internet, Internet Banking, Mobile, Mobile Banking, POS, MPOS, Kiosk, and offline channels like ATM, Branch, agents and business correspondents.

BBPS facilitates a plethora of payment modes through which a customer can make a bill payment. The payment modes options at BBPS are Cash Cards (Credit, Debit and Prepaid), IMPS, UPI, AEPS, Internet Banking and UPI, Wallets, etc.

Yes

You will have to upload the file again.

No

Yes

Yes, you will have to give consent during the first payment.

Please click here to reach out to Customer Care or write to <corporatecare@icicibank.com>.

You can identify a BBPS transaction reversed to your Account statement using the following Narration format: <BIL/BPAY/BBPS Reference Number of Original Transaction/BBPS/Biller Name/REVERSAL OF>

Sample narration as follows: <BIL/BPAY/PN7601136090/ICICI-ONLI/REVERSAL OF>

For online biller scenarios, the refunds for an unsuccessful transaction is approximately <180> seconds, subject to reversal at National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) end. For offline billers, refunds are processed manually.

You can identify a BBPS transaction on your Account statement using the Narration. BBPS transaction narration format as follows: <BIL/BPAY/BBPS Reference Number/BBPS/Biller Name/Consumer Number (i.e.) Consumer entered field>

Sample narration as follows: <BIL/BPAY/PN7601136090/ICICI-ONLI/100>

All BBPS transactions submitted for your approvals can be accessed through Dashboard > Pending on Me or Transfers and Bill Pay > Transaction Approvals > Pending on Me. Use Actions drop down to Approve or Reject a BBPS transaction after entering the One-Time Password (OTP).

You can access the BBPS transactions pending for approval either on Dashboard > Pending on Others or Transfers and Bill Pay > Transaction Approvals > Pending on Others. You can also check with whom the transaction is pending as per the workflow upon selecting the given record.

All BBPS transactions adhere to the existing Bill Payment financial workflow. There is no need to change or modify your existing Bill Payment financial workflow for undertaking a BBPS transaction.

If workflow is defined for Bill payments, the file will go for approval to the approver. The approver can go to the below path and click on the file name to download the file. The downloaded file will have the outstanding against each consumer number.

Dashboard > Pending on Me > Bulk Payments or Transfers and Bill Pay > Transaction Approvals > Pending on Me > Bulk Payments.

If the workflow is not enabled for Bill payments, then once the outstanding gets fetched from the Biller, the file will go directly for payments and the outstanding amount will be available under the reverse MIS.

Yes. Auto Pay can be disabled either from ‘Auto Pay Schedule’ or ‘Manage Billers’ section of the Quick Pay landing page by using the Auto Pay slider.

You can access the list of Auto Pay instructions scheduled from ‘Auto Pay Scheduled’ section of the Quick Pay landing page.

Auto Pay set-up is a one-time activity which can be set up while initiating a BBPS payment. Since the BBPS payment follows an applicable workflow, subsequent Auto Payments are processed directly without any further approvals.

Yes, you can retry the Bill fetch by uploading the file again with consumer numbers where bills were not fetched.

In case the Biller is not found in the BBPS Biller list, you will be provided with an option to search under Bill Payment and Presentment option. In that option, currently only single payment option is available.

Scope of ICICI Bank CIB in a BBPS transaction is limited to the following:

1. Bill Fetch/Validation (for Fetch and Pay and Pay Only Billers with validation only)
2. Transaction acceptance from customer
3. Submit transaction for onward processing to BBPS or approvals as defined in the financial workflow
4. Transaction handovers to BBPS for processing post approvals
5. Transaction status for all records uploaded.

BBPS system accepts the transactions initiated through ICICI Bank CIB, processes them, debits the customer account for the amount provided and notifies the NPCI as per rules defined for the given Biller type for payment confirmation.

Following are the steps:

1. Log in to ICICI Bank Corporate Internet Banking (CIB) and follow the below path:
   Transfers & Bill Pay > Bill Payments > Multiple Bill Pay (Powered by BBPS)
2. Search Biller by name by clicking on ‘Search for a Biller’
3. Select desired Biller from the search results (i.e.) list of BBPS billers
4. Select the account number from which Bill payments needs to be made

5. A. In case of Fetch and Pay Biller:

   • Prepare a Txt. file in the defined format (Use ‘Click here for File format’ to get a converter for making the file to be uploaded)
   • For selected Biller, consumer number required in the file will be displayed on the screen. Enter the consumer numbers in a converter file in the same order mentioned on the screen.
   • Choose the file prepared for the selected Biller and Upload.
   • Enter the remarks and click on ‘Proceed’.
   • Review payment details and enter OTP to submit the payment.
   • Receive an on-screen notification of successful upload of the file.

   B. Bill fetch:

   • For all the consumer numbers uploaded in file, bills will be fetched from the Biller system and a new file with outstanding amount will be generated.
   • In case transaction workflow is enabled, the file will go for the highest amount workflow under the corporate. Transaction is processed post approvals as per the workflow.
   • Upon workflow approvals and processing, the Biller is automatically registered and can be accessed in ‘Manage Billers’ section for future use if the customer has given the choice as Y in uploaded file for Biller registration. If the customer has selected choice N, the Biller will not be registered.
   • Auto pay instructions will be updated against all registrations if the customer has given a choice as Y for Auto pay in the uploaded file.
   • Customers can download the reverse MIS from the below path to know the status of each record:

     Login > Transfer & Payments > Transaction Approvals > Completed Payments > Bulk Payments > Select the File > Download.

6. In case of Pay Only Biller*

   • Prepare a Txt file in the defined format (use ‘Click here for File format’ to get a converter for making the file to be uploaded).
   • For selected Biller, consumer number required in the file will be displayed on the screen. Enter the consumer numbers in the converter file in the same order mentioned on the screen.
   • Choose the file prepared for the selected Biller and Upload.
   • Enter the remarks and click on ‘Proceed’.
   • Review payment details and enter OTP to submit the payment.
   • Receive an on-screen notification of successful Upload of the file.
   • In case the transaction workflow is enabled, the file will go for the workflow as per total amount of the file. Transaction is processed post approvals.
   • Customers can download the reverse MIS from the below path to know the status of each record:

     Login > Transfer & Payments > Transaction Approvals > Completed Payments > Bulk Payments > Select the File > Download.

*Biller Registration and Auto Pay are not applicable for Pay Only Biller type file upload.

Following types of billers are enabled for payments through ICICI Bank CIB:

1. Fetch and Pay: These billers essentially have online connectivity with the BBPS system, so that customers can enter bill details, fetch outstanding and make payments, all in real-time. Post successful payments, the Biller is also notified instantly, so that the payment is reconciled upon notification. Billers registered as Fetch and Pay in the BBPS system are provided with the flexibility to make payments.
2. Pay Only with Validation: In this case, both Biller and Customer Relationship details such as Relationship Number, Customer Category, Product type, etc. entered by the customer are validated with BBPS, however the Bill amount due is not automatically fetched for validation in real-time. Thus, the customer should enter the amount due as mentioned in the Bill in the uploaded file for all the consumer numbers, respectively.

Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) is an integrated bill payment system operated by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which offers interoperable and accessible bill payment services to customers online as well as through other modes approved by NPCI from time to time. The BBPS system will be available on ICICI Bank’s Corporate Internet Banking (CIB) system, which will provide multiple payment modes and instant confirmation of payment.

Bulk Bill payments allow customers to pay bills for their consumer numbers for a particular biller in one go by uploading a Bulk Payment file.