Good News - Banks now issue only RuPay cards

Good News – Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told bankers on Tuesday to only issue RuPay cards as the first option to customers

“RuPay Card should be the only card that you must promote,” Sitharaman said

“Make sure the NPCI can become a ‘brand India’ product. Whenever issuing a card, you must first issue a RuPay (floated by NPCI) card,”

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said banks need to promote only RuPay cards, and believes that with the card network becoming global, it is not necessary for Indian customers to be offered other cards.

This, if implemented, will affect the businesses of card networks Visa and Mastercard. There are over 600 million RuPay cards in force as of January (latest available), of the 872 million credit and debit cards in India in the same period.

RuPay, the Indian card payment network, is a product of National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI), the umbrella organisation in charge of retail payments in the country. Since savings accounts opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) or the government’s financial inclusion programme included the issuance of RuPay cards, the number of such cards soared quickly.

“RuPay card will have to be the only card you promote. Whoever needs a card, RuPay will be the only card you would promote and I would not think it is necessary today in India when RuPay is becoming global, for Indians to be given any other card first than RuPay itself," Sitharaman told bankers at the 73rd annual general meeting of the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA).

Make sure that the NPCI becomes a brand-India product which can be promoted elsewhere in the world, she said.

She said, to the extent possible, banks must discourage non-digital payments and promote adoption of unified payments interface (UPI)-driven payments. “UPI should be a common parlance word in all our banks," said Sitharaman.