The full form of PPIs is Prepaid Payment Instruments

The Prepaid instruments can be issued as smart cards, magnetic stripe cards, internet accounts, internet wallets, mobile accounts, mobile wallets, paper vouchers and any such instruments which can be used to access the prepaid amount (collectively called Payment Instruments hereafter).

Prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) help facilitate the purchase of goods and services, including financial services, remittances and fund transfers to family and friends against the value stored on such instruments.

Some of the examples of PPIs include Paytm and GPay (semi-closed system PPIs), gift cards (closed system PPIs) and debit or credit cards (open system PPIs).

In today’s piece, we take a look at three types of prepaid payment instruments.