RUPAY CARD (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 – Economy)

Context: Recently, NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), inked a strategic partnership agreement with Al Etihad Payments (AEP) for the implementation of Domestic Card Scheme (DCS) in the UAE. The DCS solution provided by NIPL consists of a RuPay stack and value-added services like fraud monitoring services and analytics.

RuPay

• About: RuPay is an indigenous and highly secure card payment network that is widely accepted within India.
• Launched by: National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
• Card Propositions: RuPay cards offer three different propositions: debit, credit, and prepaid.

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)

• Establishment: In 2008, it operated as an umbrella organization.
• Founded by: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA).
• It is collectively owned by a consortium of banks.
• Objective: The primary objective is to build strong and reliable payment and settlement systems.
• It operates under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.

India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)

• It includes digital identity, digital payments, and digital data exchange layers - a combination of these three is the force behind the fintech revolution in India.
• A combination of these factors makes India the third largest fintech ecosystem in the world, with rapidly surfacing unicorns. India has witnessed an exponential growth of 367% in customers participating in digital transactions in the last five years