On September 20, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das launched the Rupay credit card on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) network.
Rupay Credit Card On Unified Payments Interface (UPI) Network
Experts believe that this move has the potential to expand the market for credit by almost five times.
Presently, UPI is linked through debit cards and bank accounts.
But, with this move, one can link their Rupay credit cards, too.
Moreover, the customers of Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India, and Indian Bank will be the first to benefit with the linkage of RuPay credit card on UPI payment platform.
The National Payments Corp Of India (NPCI) said, “Customers will benefit from the increased opportunity to use their credit cards, and merchants will benefit from the increase in consumption by being part of the credit ecosystem with the acceptance of credit cards using assets like QR codes,” in a statement.
A Game Changer
According to the Payments Transformation Leader, PwC India, Mihir Gandhi, “UPI on credit card is likely to be a game changer as we will see an increase in the number of transactions on UPI with the payment instrument being credit cards. Initially, it will be allowed for RuPay credit cards only and going forward we expect that other scheme credit cards may also have this UPI linkage,”.
Further adding, “From a pricing perspective, we expect the pricing (MDR) for low value UPI on credit card transactions to be zero, however for higher value transactions it is expected that the MDR for UPI on credit cards will be similar to credit card swipe at online/physical locations.”
The NPCI said, “RuPay credit cards will be linked to a Virtual Payment Address (VPA) i.e. UPI ID, thus directly enabling safe, and secure payment transactions. The initial phase of operationalisation will be centered on extracting actionable learnings that would be used to fine-tune the proposition in later phases to scale up the usage,”.
“Together, RuPay credit card on UPI, UPI LITE, and Bharat BillPay Cross-Border Bill Payments initiatives gives the potential to revolutionize the digital payments ecosystem and extend the reach of digital payments to many new users across India and abroad and aid the journey of onboarding the next 300 mn users on digital payments,” NPCI added.
Market experts said that rising credit card and UPI payments indicate an increase in consumption amid recovery in economic activities with the ebbing impact of Covid-19 pandemic.