<p> India is set to have its own card payment platform ‘RuPay’. President Pranab Mukherjee unveiled the indigenous card at a function in Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Conceived and launched by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), RuPay facilitates electronic payment at all Indian banks and financial institutions, and will compete with MasterCard and Visa. RuPay holders will be able to carry out transactions on three channels — ATMs, Point of Sales and online. RuPay will initially be a payment option within the country and is likely to become a mode of payment overseas as well later.<br /><br />“For a large country like India with a rapidly growing economy, the volume of payment transactions, specially those settled through cards, will be significant in the years ahead. Transactions which are mostly settled today either by way of cash or cheque will progressively make way for card-based payment transactions as the economy matures and Internet penetration increases,” said President Mukherjee.<br /><br />The RuPay platform is expected to reduce cash transactions. According to NPCI, since the transaction processing will happen domestically, it would lead to lower cost of clearing and settlement per transaction. This will make the transaction cost affordable and drive usage of RuPay cards in the industry.<br /><br />For clearing and settlement of each transaction, banks will pay approximately 40 per cent lower by way of fees on the RuPay platform compared to international platforms like Visa and MasterCard.<br /><br />In the beginning, RuPay was used only in ATMs, but NPCI later started issuing debit cards for offline retail purchases. The current move, which allows RuPay cards to be used in e-commerce payments, is bound to intensify competition in India. RuPay is currently accepted at more than 1.6 lakh country’s ATMs, 95 per cent of some 10 lakh PoS terminals and by most e-commerce merchants. <br /><br />Financial Services Secretary G S Sandhu said RuPay would be available at a cost far lower than international cards. Public sector banks have already installed 25,331 RuPay card-enabled ATMs and 9,000 more ATMs will be installed in the current fiscal, Sandhu said.<br /></p>
<p> India is set to have its own card payment platform ‘RuPay’. President Pranab Mukherjee unveiled the indigenous card at a function in Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Conceived and launched by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), RuPay facilitates electronic payment at all Indian banks and financial institutions, and will compete with MasterCard and Visa. RuPay holders will be able to carry out transactions on three channels — ATMs, Point of Sales and online. RuPay will initially be a payment option within the country and is likely to become a mode of payment overseas as well later.<br /><br />“For a large country like India with a rapidly growing economy, the volume of payment transactions, specially those settled through cards, will be significant in the years ahead. Transactions which are mostly settled today either by way of cash or cheque will progressively make way for card-based payment transactions as the economy matures and Internet penetration increases,” said President Mukherjee.<br /><br />The RuPay platform is expected to reduce cash transactions. According to NPCI, since the transaction processing will happen domestically, it would lead to lower cost of clearing and settlement per transaction. This will make the transaction cost affordable and drive usage of RuPay cards in the industry.<br /><br />For clearing and settlement of each transaction, banks will pay approximately 40 per cent lower by way of fees on the RuPay platform compared to international platforms like Visa and MasterCard.<br /><br />In the beginning, RuPay was used only in ATMs, but NPCI later started issuing debit cards for offline retail purchases. The current move, which allows RuPay cards to be used in e-commerce payments, is bound to intensify competition in India. RuPay is currently accepted at more than 1.6 lakh country’s ATMs, 95 per cent of some 10 lakh PoS terminals and by most e-commerce merchants. <br /><br />Financial Services Secretary G S Sandhu said RuPay would be available at a cost far lower than international cards. Public sector banks have already installed 25,331 RuPay card-enabled ATMs and 9,000 more ATMs will be installed in the current fiscal, Sandhu said.<br /></p>
