NPCI soon to launch RuPay

National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) is working with full swing to launch a National Competitor to the international card providers lie Visa and MasterCard which will be known as RuPay. The need of a domestic payment gateway was suggested by RBI.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NPCI Mr. A.P. Hota said “Our consultant has just started working. It would review the strategy document that we had prepared internally, and is expected to take six-eight weeks. Much would depend on the timeline that it suggests and discuss with us and we will freeze that. But we would like it to happen as quickly as possible...it should not take more than 18 months for at least the debit and prepaid (cards) to come up.”

NPCI is also working to with global card associations for the global acceptance of RuPay. “We have expressed our intention of building international acceptance of the RuPay card. Obviously, for international acceptance, we need partners who can make it happen. The card associations can do this and it would be quicker this way. We can also talk to different large acquiring companies, but that would be a slow process. We are evaluating which is the right way. Aligning ourselves or working with international card associations would definitely be a simpler route,” said Hota.

NPCI has claimed that on domestic level Rupay can be very effective, the Indian Banks will be more convenient with it as it will definitely be more cost effective for the banks as compared to the International card providers. At present even the domestic transactions are carried out by the payment gateway located outside the country.

“The biggest benefit for banks is this would be cost-effective. Instead of many types of service charges, we would make it very simple. We would also make the dispute management more simple and straight-forward. Banks would have a bigger role in the governance of the (RuPay) scheme --- much more than what they have in international schemes,” said Hota.