Pranab to dedicate indigenous payment card RuPay to nation

RuPay, an indigenous payment card accepted at most retail and e-commerce platforms and all automated teller machines (ATMs) across the country, will be dedicated to the nation Thursday.

President Pranab Mukherjee is scheduled to dedicate the card payment network to the nation at a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

"RuPay" is the coinage of two terms Rupee and Payment. It has been developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a not-for-profit company envisioned by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and created by the banking industry.

According to an official statement, the RuPay card, launched March 26, 2012, is accepted at all ATMs (over 1,60,000), 95 percent of point-of-sale (PoS) terminals (over 9,45,000) and most of the e-commerce merchants (over 10,000) across the country.

A variant of the card called "Kisan Card" is now being issued by all the public sector banks in addition to the mainstream debit cards issued by 43 banks.

"A variant of Pre-paid RuPay card would shortly be launched by IRCTC," it said.

More than 150 cooperative banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) in the country have issued the RuPay ATM card. The total number of cards issued as on date is 17 Million and is growing at a rate of about three million per month.

"This card symbolises the capabilities of banking industry in India to build a card payment network so that dependency on international card scheme is minimised," the statement said.