NPCI to raise Rs 100 cr

To extend shareholding to 50 more banks, ties up with JCBI for card acceptance and issuance in India

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is planning to raise Rs 100 crore through private placement in July. The capital will be raised by inducting 50 more banks as stakeholders.

“The idea is to broadbase the shareholding from 10 banks. It is also a directive by the Reserve Bank of India to ensure the shareholding includes more banks,” said A P Hota, managing director and chief executive officer of NPCI.

According to Hota, the money raised will be used to build a new payments switch of 100 million capacity, for research & development, building a new campus and for building new products.

Among the new products NPCI is working on is a unified payments interface, which will allow real-time money transfer via a single click. Applications for this will be developed by technology players, but the interface will be provided by NPCI.

NPCI has also entered into a strategic partnership with JCB International Company (JCBI) for card acceptance and issuance in India. With this, all JCBI cards will be accepted at NPCI ATMs and point of sales machines in India. This will include issuance of RuPay/JCBI cards by NPCI member-bank. The two partners plan to launch RuPay/JCBI cards in 2016.

NPCI has another partnership with US-based Discover Financial Services, card network for international acceptance of RuPay cards. NPCI’s existing promoter banks are State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citibank, and HSBC. These 10 banks had contributed Rs 10 crore each to NPCI’s paid-up capital.

The new banks that will be inducted have been broadly divided into four categories. The first category of banks will have a business size (advances plus deposits) of Rs 2 lakh crore and above. These banks will have to pay up to Rs 5 crore each. The second category will have a business size of less than Rs 2 lakh crore; these will contribute Rs 2 crore each. The third category includes regional rural banks, which will pay Rs 25 lakh each, and the fourth category of urban co-operative banks will give Rs 5 lakh each to be a part of NPCI. Although both private and public sector bank can be the promoters, at any given point of time, the shareholding of PSBs has to be a minimum of 51 per cent.