Bogged by pressures from the advancement of date for completion of Jan Dhan Yojana by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to January 26, 2015, RBI’s implementing agency NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) has postponed its plans to launch a full-fledged RUPAY credit card till 2016. RuPay is India’s answer to the global giants like VISA and MASTERCARD.
“We have postponed the launch of our RuPay credit by another year due to the advancement of the date for the completion of the PM’s Jan Dhan programme,” AP Hota, CMD, NPCI told The Pioneer. NPCI plans to launch RuPay cards globally in line with VISA and Mastercard that that will be accepted overseas through a partnership with Discover Financial Services. It is also in talks with Japanese card network JCB for a partnership.
The agency had earlier declared the launch India’s first gateway card like the international VISA and MASTERCARD by 2015. The PM Jan Dhan Yojana announced on August 15, by the Prime Minister had earlier fixed the date of floating atleast one bank account for each of the 7.5 core households in India by August, 2015. It was however, later pre-poned to an earlier date of January 26, 2015 by the Prime Minister himself.
RuPay had aimed to issue credit cards by March 2015, but those plans have now been delayed by the PMJDY scheme. However, Hota has said that the plans to float the Rupay credit card is intact and will be carried out however, acceptance of the Jan Dhan cards will be our priority. “NPCI is also trying to lure more customers by charging banks lower fees of about 1-2 per cent lesser than Visa and MasterCard at various merchant bank locations and at retialers,” said Hota.
NPCI’s RuPay presently has debit cards which however has a very low user base and is offered by few banks. As per industry sources the RuPay users account for just 1.5 percent of daily card transactions which accounts for almost over one million at retailers.
RuPay’s share of daily card transactions, however, remains small compared to the global firms like VISA and MASTERCARD, which are more established and offer both debit and credit cards and are accepted by more retailers as well as merchant establishment.
NPCI’s payments network is set to grow rapidly from the PM Modi’s mega financial inclusion scheme Jan Dhan which aims to ensure the majority of households to have atleast one bank account which would also be used for the Direct Benefit Transfers for food security, MNREGA, fuel and fertiliser subsidies.
Under the scheme launched in August by the Prime Minister, Indians who open a bank account for the first time automatically get a RuPay card with a Rs 1 lakh accident cover and Rs 30,000 life cover. NPCI’s shareholders include India’s biggest bank the State Bank of India, foreign lenders like Citibank, HSBC as well as several private sector banks. The Reserve Bank of India bank has a nominee on its board.