RuPay credit card launch delayed further

Delay in launch because NPCI now working on a higher capacity financial technology infrastructure

RuPay, the domestic card payment service provider which was set to launch its credit card in June this year, has delayed the launch of its product. The earlier timeline for the launch was January, which was later pushed to June. However, now the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has decided to shift the launch date even further.

“RuPay credit card was going to be launched in June 2016 but the launch has been further put off. The board approved date for the launch on August 28 but I think that will be a challenge. But, we will definitely launch the credit card in 2016,” said A P Hota, managing director and chief executive officer, NPCI.

Hota explained that the delay in launch is because NPCI is now working on a higher capacity financial technology infrastructure, which is taking time. “Currently, we have a switching system from Euronet. This has a capacity of 40 million transactions a day. However, the peak volume that we have processed is 14 million. But to be on a safe side, we have started work on a 100-million transaction capacity owned by FIS,” added Hota. The management believes it might take two-three years to reach the 100-million volume capacity mark.

Going ahead, within the credit card segment, NPCI will mainly be focusing on the top end segment, which is the gold or the platinum cards as they believe growth is likely to come from the higher-end variants.

RuPay is a domestic brand in the card space and is owned and developed by NPCI, and aims to compete with Visa and MasterCard that have a strong foothold in the segment. In the past year, RuPay has gained prominence as all the accounts started under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana scheme have been given a RuPay card. According to the latest data, 219.3 million accounts have so far been opened and 180.1 million cards have been issued under this scheme.