RuPay is an Indian domestic card scheme conceived and launched by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). It was created to fulfil the Reserve Bank of India's desire to have a domestic, open loop, and multilateral system of payments in India. In India, 90 per cent of credit card transactions and almost all debit card transactions are domestic; however, the cost of transactions was high due to monopoly of foreign gateways like Visa and Mastercard. RuPay facilitates electronic payment at all Indian banks and financial institutions. NPCI maintains ties with Discover Financial to enable the card scheme to gain international acceptance.
Video RuPay
Background
The IndiaPay scheme was conceived by the National Payments Corporation of India as an alternative to the MasterCard and Visa card schemes, and to consolidate and integrate various payment systems in India. It was renamed to RuPay to avoid naming conflicts with other financial institutions using the same name.
RuPay is a portmanteau of the words rupee and payment. The colors used in the logo are an allusion to the tricolor national flag.
The RuPay card was launched on 26 March 2012. NPCI entered into a strategic partnership with Discover Financial Services (DFS) for RuPay Card, enabling the acceptance of RuPay Global Cards on Discover's global payment network outside of India.
On 8 May 2014, RuPay has been dedicated to India by President of India, Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi.
Maps RuPay
Acceptance
RuPay cards are accepted at almost all ATMs across India. According to the data published by National Payments Corporation of India, there are well over 2 Lakh ATMs and more than 2,614,584 PoS terminals in India under the RuPay platform. In addition to the ATMs and PoS terminals, RuPay cards are accepted online on most domestic payment gateways and some international payment gateways (through its alliances with other networks).
RuPay Cards are accepted at 97% of all PoS terminals in India. RuPay has partnered 39 PoS Acquiring Banks in India to accept their cards at PoS terminals located at different merchant locations.
Global Alliances
To increase acceptance around the world RuPay has form several agreements with other payment networks. Some major examples include:
- Discover
- Diners Club
- JCB
- UnionPay
- BCcard
- Elo
- DinaCard
Banking
RuPay's Parent Organization, National Payments Corporation of India has been backed by 11 leading banks, of which 7 are public sector banks namely State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Union Bank of India, Andhra Bank and Bank of India; 2 private sector banks ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank with 2 foreign banks namely Citi Bank and HSBC. As of March 2017, over 600 banks, including all major public sector banks, several private banks, co-operative and rural banks, issue RuPay cards.
Banks in India are authorized to issue RuPay debit cards to their customers for use at ATMs, PoS terminals, and e-commerce websites. About 25 million cards have been issued as of March 2014. RuPay cards are also issued at about 200 cooperative and rural banks to promote financial inclusion.
RuPay EMV
NPCI has rolled out its chip card for high security transactions using EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) chip technology, which is a global standard for debit and credit cards. RuPay chip cards have an embedded microprocessor circuit containing information about the card holder and because transactions are PIN-based rather than signature-based.
Jan Dhan Yojana
RuPay Cards got a major boost through the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana as RuPay cards were issued to all Jan Dhan accounts. In spite of the critics saying most accounts are dormant, RuPay Cards are now widely used by Jan Dhan Card holders.
Until March 2016, 178 million RuPay Debit Cards were issued under the Jan Dhan Yojana against 662 million debit cards issued by the banking industry. NPCI held consultations with small finance bank licensees on the use of RuPay Cards and is set to emerge as the dominant debit card with small finance banks.
RuPay is presently the largest card network in India with over 43% of market share (375 million users) in Indian card payment scheme. RuPay overtook Visa (which had over 50% of the market share) in June 2017. RuPay Cards are widely accepted across the country at almost all ATMs, PoS terminals and e-commerce portals. In addition, certain RuPay Cards (such as Platinum Debit/Credit Card & Select Credit Card) are also accepted internationally through the Discover Financial Network and JCB Network.
Initiative for farmers
RuPay also provides a unified "Kisan Card", issued by banks across the country under Kisan Credit Card, enabling farmers to transact business on ATMs and PoS terminals.
PUNGRAIN (Punjab Grains Procurement Corporation Ltd), pays commission agents through the RuPay Debit Card, and developed a commission agents network called the Kisan Arhtia Information and Remittance Online Network (KAIRON) with the help of the National Payments Corporation of India.
Kotak Mahindra Bank in partnership with RuPay rolled out an initiative for financial inclusion, where the dairy farmers across 75 cooperative societies of AMUL in regions of Burdwan and Hooghly of West Bengal will be able to get their payments directly into their account on the same day of sale of milk.
The same model is planned to be adopted in the state of Gujarat where 1200 cooperative societies comprising over 300,000 dairy farmers will be the part of the programme.
See also
- BharatQR
- Unified Payments Interface
References
External links
- NPCI
Source of article : Wikipedia