RBI Pilots Prepaid Cash-Out Facility

With the new pilot project, companies like Oxigen, Airtel Money, Itz Cash, and mpesa can start offering cash-out facility through their network establishments across India.

At first RBI was going to issue a credit card that fulfilled the biometric authentication requirement in India. This would have been no only expensive, but also had the potential of creating more failed transactions, according to Track.in.

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    However, the new RBI directive is being placed on hold because major banks were unwilling to implement biometric authentication at every POS terminal in India. Instead, RBI now wants to implement a pilot project that involves prepaid cards.

    Rather than using a major bank, there can be a prepaid card facility for subscribers on the basis of biometric authentication.

    “By running the pilot project on pre-paid cards, RBI is killing two birds with one stone. The pre-paid card issuers have been hankering for a ‘cash out’ facility for long. By allowing ‘cash out’ with biometric authentication, RBI has kept pre-paid issuers happy. It also ensures that these companies have a strong incentive to make biometric authentication work,” a senior banking official told ET.

    With the new pilot project, companies like Oxigen, Airtel Money, Itz Cash, mpesa and others can start offering cash-out facility through their network establishments across India.

     

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