Mumbai, Sept 05
The RBI on Monday said HDFC Bank (in partnership with Sweden-based Crunchfish Aktiebolag) and Precision Biometric India Pvt. Ltd have been selected for the ‘Test Phase’ for their ‘Offline Retail Payments’ and ‘InnaIT Key Solution for Banking’ products, respectively, under its ‘On Tap’ application facility for the theme ‘Retail Payments’ under Regulatory Sandbox.
HDFC Bank’s product ‘Offline Retail Payments’ provides capability for customer and merchants to be able to pay and receive payments in offline mode, as per an RBI statement.
The solution aims to boost adoption of digital payments in areas of no or low network by enabling transactions without the need to have a network connection.
Precision Biometric’s product ‘InnaIT Key Solution for Banking’ offers solution enabling biometric tokens which can be used for secure password less authentication and Additional Factor Authentication (AFA), instead of an OTP, for logging into internet/ mobile banking.
“The solution combines Public key infrastructure (PKI) and Biometric to enhance security and user experience in digital payments space,” RBI added.
The RBI introduced a Regulatory Sandbox (RS) in 2019 to foster responsible innovation in financial services, promote efficiency and expand benefits to consumers.
‘Fifth Cohort to be theme neutral’
Meanwhile, the central bank said the Fifth Cohort under Regulatory Sandbox will be theme neutral. “Innovative products/services/technologies cutting across various functions in RBI’s regulatory domain would be eligible to apply. The application window for the same shall be communicated in due course,” it added.
In addition, as per the Enabling Framework for Regulatory Sandbox, the Second Cohort on ‘Cross Border Payments’ is now also open for ‘On Tap’ application.
When RBI first announced the opening of Second Cohort under the Regulatory Sandbox on December 16, 2020, the window for submission of applications for the Cohort was open from December 21, 2020 to February 15, 2021.
The Cohort is expected to spur innovations capable of recasting the cross-border payments landscape by leveraging new technologies to meet the needs of a low cost, secure, convenient and transparent system in a faster manner, the central bank then said.