By Elton Gomes
Indian card payment scheme RuPay is all set to break the three-decade dominance of Mastercard and Visa, and is well on its way to overtake them in volume and value of transactions done.
Dilip Asbe, chief executive of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), told the Economic Times, “We (RuPay cards) are already the number 1 scheme in the number of cards issued. This year, we will become number 2 scheme on value and volume done on PoS machines and e-commerce.”
Here’s what happened
International cards like Visa and Mastercard have dominated the debit and credit card sector approximately for thirty years in India.
In a meeting held last week with the country’s top bureaucrats, Asbe said: “Before RuPay cards came, debit cards were being issued by only 35 banks.” He added that digital transactions have become easier now that over 1,000 banks issue debit cards.
To increase the use of RuPay cards, the suggestion to make online payments through RuPay cards was proposed. At the same meeting the secretary of the ministry of electronics and information technology, Ajay Prakash Sawhney, urged officials to enable RuPay card payments on government websites.
“Sometimes we see that websites take you to option of paying through Visa and Mastercard cards, but the Ru-Pay card option is not there. We have to ensure our instruments are enabled on websites,” Sawhney said in an interview with the Economic Times.
The proliferation of RuPay cards will act as a propeller to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of a digital India. As digital transactions are on the rise in India, RuPay will reap immense profits of taking payments online.
In another boost to Modi’s vision of a digital India, at least 30 countries have approached the NPCI asking for the IP of the BHIM UPI platform.
Thrilled over India becoming a trendsetter, Asbe said, “All our life we have been following the west. This (BHIM UPI) is the only platform along with Aadhaar where the west is trying to follow the east.”
However, he said that the government is focusing on including 400 to 500 million Indians under the platform.
Why you should care
Among a host of objectives, RuPay aims towards financial inclusion. Besides financial inclusion, RuPay has been linked with government initiatives such as Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), RuPay Mudra Card, and a prepaid card for the Indian Railways (IRCTC RuPay Prepaid Cards).
As India transitions to making payments online, a large-scale, domestic platform like RuPay will better understand users, and might potentially offer tailor-made services. In addition, India might not need the services of foreign payment schemes when such schemes are effective and reliable in the country – and RuPay seems to be headed in the right direction.
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