RuPay Card Granted First UPI Connection by India’s Central Bank

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) granted permission to RuPay, the first FinTech with such authorization, to connect their cards with the unified payments interface (UPI), which will enablFinTeche more people to make digital payments with cards issued by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

NPCI enables digital payments and settlement systems in India and is an initiative of the RBI and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA).

“UPI has become the most inclusive mode of payment in India with over 26 crore unique users and 5 crore merchants on the platform. In May 2022 alone, about 594 crore transactions amounting to 10.4 lakh crore rupee were processed through UPI. At present, UPI facilitates transactions by linking savings/current accounts through users’ debit cards,” according to a statement on Wednesday (June 8) by RBI. A lakh represents a hundred thousand, and a crore is 10 million.

“It is now proposed to allow linking of credit cards on the UPI platform. To begin with, the Rupay credit cards will be linked to the UPI platform. This will provide additional convenience to users and enhance the scope of digital payments,” RBI wrote.

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Before RuPay, only debit cards connected to savings bank accounts and current accounts were allowed to connect to the UPI platform. RBI Gov. Shaktikanta Das said that with RuPay, people will have more ways to make payments using the UPI platform.

UPI is the most inclusive mode of payment in India, with over 26 crore unique users and 5 crore merchants onboarded on the platform, Das said.

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