India gets own payment gateway

New Delhi: India on Thursday launched its own payment gateway 'RuPay', equivalent of Visa and Mastercard, which will work on ATMs and mechant outlets and help in reducing cash transactions. President Pranab Mukherjee unveiled the indigenous card at a function in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Dedicating it to the nation, Mukherjee said India is one of the few countries in the world to have its own card payment gateway. The RuPay platform -- developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-- is being used by certain banks like ICICI, SBI, Punjab National Bank, among others, for clearing and settlement. RuPay, which works on three channels -- ATMs, Point of Sales and online sales, is the seventh such payment gateway in the world.

A variant of pre-paid RuPay card would shortly be launched by IRCTC, which will help in booking railway tickets. RuPay will not only reduce dependence on cash, but will offer users diverse set of payment option within the country, Mukherjee said. NPCI plans to take RuPay card overseas. RuPay would be available at a cost which is much less than those of international cards. For clearing and settlement of each transactions, banks will have to pay 40 per cent lower fees in RuPay platform compared to other international platforms. The public sector banks have already installed 25,331 RuPay cards enabled ATMS and 9,000 more ATMs would be installed in the current fiscal, Sandhu said. The RuPay card is accepted at all ATMs (1.6 lakh plus), 95 per cent of PoS terminals (9.45 lakh plus) and most of the eCom merchants (about 10,000) in the country.