Reserve Bank of India to create Digital Payments Index to capture extent of digitisation of payments

In what appears to be a move to give a push to digital payments in the country, the Reserve Bank of India on Thursday announced the setting up of a Digital Payments Index. This index, the RBI says would help capture the extent of digitisation of payments effectively.

"The DPI would be based on multiple parameters and shall reflect accurately the penetration and deepening of various digital payment modes. The DPI will be made available from July 2020 onwards, " the RBI statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies said. This was made alongside the monetary policy statement.

It stated that with substantial growth in digital payments and maturity gained by entities in the payment ecosystem, it is desirable to have a Self-Regulatory Organisation (SRO) for orderly operations of the entities in the payment system. "The Reserve Bank will put in place a framework for establishing an SRO for the digital payment system by April 2020 to fostering best practices on security, customer protection and pricing, among others. The SRO will serve as a two-way communication channel between the players and the regulator/supervisor."

Recently, the government scrapped merchant discount rates (MDR) on payments made through Rupay debit cards and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), in a bid to push digital payments. MDR is basically the cost paid by a merchant to the bank for accepting payment from their customers via digital channels.

“Department of Revenue (DoR) will notify RuPay and UPI as the prescribed mode of payment for undertaking digital transactions without any MDR. Accordingly, all companies with a turnover of ₹50 crore or more shall be mandated by DoR to provide the facility of payment through RuPay Debit card and UPI QR code to their customers," the finance ministry had said in a statement in December.