Comments
With cash becoming scarce and much sought after these days following demonetisation of high-value notes, RuPay cards are saving the day for some.
There has been a big spurt in the use of RuPay cards for various transactions since November 9 when the ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes were withdrawn by the Centre.
“The number of daily transactions has gone up from four lakh prior to demonetisation to about 10 lakh now,” AP Hota, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), told BusinessLine on Monday.
The usage is broad based. “It is not being used just at ATMs but also at many point-of-sale (PoS) terminals at shops and many other retail outlets which is much easier to do so,” Hota said.
This offers huge opportunity as there are 14 lakh PoS terminals and 2.30 lakh ATMs in the country, he added.
RuPay card, an Indian variant of international cards like Master & Visa, was launched in 2012. There are 31 crore RuPay cards in the country of which 20 crore have been issued to Jan Dhan Yojana accounts, according to NPCI data.
Apart from scrapping of ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes, severe paucity of smaller denomination notes, including ₹100 and ₹50, is driving people to use these cards.
Interestingly, a significant number of RuPay card users in the last 10 days are first-time users.
NPCI had also waived off switching fee for PoS and e-commerce transactions till December 31, 2016.
Long-term benefitsEven though shortage of currency could be eased, going forward, NPCI expects that digital transactions through RuPay will remain. “Those who use these cards once, will naturally know the advantages and stick to their use in future as well,” Hota said, adding that this trend will help the non-cash economy in the long term.
The Unified Payment Interface usage has also been catching up as a round-the-clock remittance service. “While State Bank of India is set to go live on UPI shortly, HDFC Bank is in the process of doing it,” NPCI CEO said.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.