The Reserve Bank of India will soon come out with a fresh vision document for the development of payment systems in the country as the current document is valid only till 2015, said RBI Deputy Governor R Gandhi.

Speaking to media persons on the sidelines of the National Payments Excellence Awards function here on Tuesday, he said the new document will delineate the direction of the regulation. It will cover the developmental initiatives that the RBI will encourage the industry to take up.

The validity of the new document could be from three-five years. The bank has not set validity as the document work is still in progress. The RBI has been issuing such documents since 1998, Gandhi said.

On of merchant charges being levied on banking transactions, Gandhi said that charges must be periodically reviewed. The charges should be a fine balance between the cost of convenience to the customer and the vendor offering that service. The service providers should be enthused to offer them while the customers should not be hurt in the transaction.

Earlier, addressing the banking fraternity at the National Payments Corporation of India’s award function, Gandhi said the share of electronic payments is continuously on the rise, both in volume and value terms. Several payment channels, such as cards (credit, debit and prepaid), near field and cardless, electronic, the Internet and mobile-based platforms, are growing in big numbers. ATMs and POS machines have proliferated.

Therefore, the market participants must also continue to take a serious interest in developing the payment systems. It will need a catalytic effort from common interest groups, he said.

The Deputy Governor pointed out that in a research report of Goldman Sachs, one of the three emerging trends in the financial world was the payment revolution.

The report says that the drivers that are changing the way people pay are technology, regulations, demography and international factors.

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