RuPay India’s own payment gateway RuPay
India launched its own
payment gateway 'RuPay', equivalent of Visa and Mastercard, which will work on
ATMs and mechant outlets and help in reducing cash transactions.President
Pranab Mukherjee dedicated to the nation indigenous card payment network called
RuPay taking on the global players like Visa and MasterCard.
The new payment network
developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a
not-for-profit company envisioned by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and
created by the banking industry, covers all the automated teller machines
(ATMs) and most of the retail and e-commerce platforms. RuPay is the coinage of
two terms Rupee and Payment. India has now ranked among the few countries in
the world to have such a network built domestically to meet the card-based
payment system needs of the country.
RuPay cards are accepted
at all ATMs, more than 90 per cent of ‘Point of Sale’ (POS) terminals and more
than 10,000 e-commerce merchants across the country. RuPay Scheme provides
flexibility to card issuing banks to issue special purpose cards like Kisan
Cards, Milk Procurement Cards, Grain Procurement Cards and Financial Inclusion
Cards. A variant of the card called Kisan Card is now being issued by all the
Public Sector banks in addition to the mainstream debit card which has been
issued by 43 banks.
More than 150
cooperative banks and the Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) in the country have also
issued RuPay ATM cards. The total number of cards issued as on date is 17
Million and is growing at a rate of about three million per month.Card—based payment
transactions in India is set to grow rapidly in the coming years as the economy
matures and internet penetration increases. An indigenous system like RuPay
will, hopefully, not only reduce the dependence on cash and cheque modes of
settlement but will also make it easier to offer products based on specific
requirements of diverse user sets within the country
