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All Sales Terminals to Accept RuPay Cards by Jan 2013: NPCI

RuPay is India’s first domestic payment card network launched by National Payment Council of India (NPCI). The domestic debit card payment system is likely to be acceptable at all PoS (Point of Sales) terminals or the location where transaction occurs in the country from January 2013.

The managing director and chief executive of NPCI, said that, at present, it is accepted by 48,000 merchant terminals. It is a PIN-based card but not a signature-based card. These cards aims to compete existing facilitators like Visa Inc and Master card Inc and provide debit and credit card services.

According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), there are around 91,000 ATMS and 6.5 lakh PoS terminals in India. When, RuPay cards were launched in April 2011 and these were acceptable at all ATMs. Now, PoS terminals come forward to accept these cards from January 2013.

At present, around 22 banks in the country are using RuPay card-based system. Of these, Union Bank of India, State Bank of India, Bank of India and Axis bank have joined RuPay network and the rest 18 banks include Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) and Co-operative banks. According to the chief executive of NPCI, it is expected that more banks are going to join the new payment system in future.

The domestic debit card payment platform will come up with an international debit card in June 2013. Banks to adopt RuPay to save cost, as there is a cost advantage which is around 40% lower than the international payment system like Visa and Mastercard. NPCI is concentrating on debit card segment for three years, after that, they would launch credit cards.