President of India Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated India’s very own payment gateway: RuPay which will directly compete against global biggies such as MasterCard and Visa. After this, India has entered the exclusive club of those countries which has its own payment gateway.
This unique payment gateway was conceived and developed by National Payments Corporation of India, and can be used to facilitate ATM withdrawals, online shopping along with payments at merchant outlets.
As of now, some of the biggest Indian banks such SBI, PNB, ICICI Bank along with some others are already using RuPay to clear payments from Indian merchants and traders. The motive behind this launch of state owned payment gateway is to reduce the burden on cash and make it easier for Indian entrepreneurs, business men, merchants and traders to accept payments, without involving cash.
Financial services secretary GS Sandhu said during the launch that as of now, state owned banks have already installed 25,331 RuPay enabled ATMs all over the country, and within the end of this year, 9000 more ATMs would be covered.
Some of the major advantages of using RuPay by merchants:
– As the processing of the transaction would be happening inside India, there would be less transaction cost involved. Estimated, the total costs would reduce by 40% for banks, when compared to charges levied by other payment gateways such as Mastercard and Visa.
– Customization can be made rapidly, and easily, as the payment gateway has been developed by an Indian government undertaking. The whole process of payment acceptance and processing can be customized as per Indian business needs and requirements
– Data will remain in India, hence its more protected
– As the usage of RuPay expands inside India, more and more merchants and entrepreneurs would start using it, making the penetration more expansive
– IRCTC will integrate RuPay into its payment options, making it super easy to book tickets
– National Payments Corporation of India is in talks with foreign based financial services to make it usable abroad as well, which will make the process of transfer of money very easy without any extra processing fees. Talk are already on with Discover Financial Services in the US and JDC in Japan
As of now, more than 250 banks have integrated RuPay into their domain, thereby including 20 million+ bank account holders and ATM cards into this new payment gateway. More than 150 cooperative and rural banks have also started accepting RuPay as their mode of processing payments.
Do you think this Indian government powered payment gateway will be able to beat global biggies such as Mastercard and Visa ?
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