CHENNAI: The National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) RuPay is close to becoming a “complete platform”, said its CEO A P Hota, with technological infrastructure necessary for the organisation’s credit card operations ready for rollout.
According to Hota, RuPay credit cards will be launched in a month’s time and will provide banks a cheaper option in terms of transactional costs.
“We have ten banks who have tied up with us, and we will launch four types of cards — RuPay Select, RuPay Platinum, RuPay Classic and RuPay Murali Credit cards,” said Hota.
NPCI, which is trying to tap into the country’s 25 million card credit card market, will provide users both domestic and international operability, depending on the user’s request to banks.
“The number of credit card users in India is quite small compared to the number of debit card holders. Of over 800 million card holders, less than 25 million hold credit cards,” Hota said.
In terms of transactional costs, NPCI is charging a fixed rate for transactions that might work out to around 90 paise. “Other players, especially international ones, charge on an ad valorum (percentage) basis and while they charge different rates for different banks, it works out to around Rs 2.5,” he pointed out.
NPCI would also launch ‘tap and go’ card for transit systems. The first two are set to be cards for Kochi and Bengaluru, to be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi this weekend.