NPCI to launch RuPay credit card by July

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Saturday said it will launch a RuPay credit card by June or July this year.

"By June or July we will rollout RuPay version of credit cards," said NPCI chairman M. Balachandran on the margins of a Unified Payment Interface (UPI) hackathon the umbrella organisation for retail payments in the country organised.

He later said the NPCI has escalated its paid up capital to Rs.137 crore from Rs.100 crore by broadbasing its stakeholders from public and private sector banks as well.

As many as 56 different banks have shareholding in NPCI despite it being a non-listed entity with no dividend declarations.

"Ours is a non-profit company, and inspite of not being a listed entity and we don't declare dividends, the enthusiasm shown by people to become shareholders in NPCI has been tremendous," said Balachandran.

According to him, there are 241 million RuPay credit cards in circulation comprising 35 percent of the total card base in India and accounting to 20 percent of all card-based transactions.

As many as 600 banks currently issue RuPay cards which are accepted at ATMs, points of sale and in ecommerce.

Starting September, China Union Pay and Japan Credit Bureau (JCB) foreign cards will be accepted in India, said Balachandran.

Speaking on the UPI hackathon, NPCI honorary advisor and former Infosys chief executive Nandan Nilekani said banks can use digital footprint to give customers a loan.

"As more and more payments become digital, it creates a digital footprint of your activity and you (customer) can authorise a bank to use your digital footprint to give you a loan," he said.

On Saturday, NPCI attracted nearly 300 developers from banks, technical companies and others to participate in its hackathon to develop solutions.

"NPCI would support banks and solution providers to develop solutions based on the Application Programming Interface (APIs) made available by us," said NPCI MD and CEO A.P. Hota.