MUMBAI: The National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI’s) RuPay and e-Rupi brands will be taking a bigger bite of the services currently dominated by global networks.
The RBI has announced plans to expand the scope and reach of e-Rupi vouchers launched in August 2021 to pay for specific purposes like vaccinations. The central bank has also allowed banks to issue RuPay prepaid forex cards, enabling their use at ATMs, pointof-sale (PoS) machines, and online merchants worldwide. While RuPay is not present in all countries, it has entered into partnerships that enable its use outside India.
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Additionally, RuPay debit, credit and prepaid cards will be made available for issuance in foreign jurisdictions, allowing their international use, including within India.
e-Rupi vouchers, which operate on the UPIsystem of NPCI, can now be issued bynon-bank prepaid payment instrument (PPI) firms. Additionally, individuals will be authorised to issue them. This expansion aims to unlock many new use cases, including gift vouchers, individual gifting, food vouchers and purposespecific vouchers such as pocket money. The platform will be revamped to address issues like voucher reloading, authentication, and issuance limits to facilitate the seamless use of e-Rupi vouchers.
“The expansion of e-Rupi vouchers to include prepaid instrument issuers and the authorisation for individuals to issue them will revolutionise the digital payments landscape,” said Dilip Asbe, MD & CEO of NPCI.
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“This significant move paves the way for a wide range of new use cases, including gift vouchers, individual gifting, food vouchers and purposespecific vouchers like pocket money. With existing infrastructure of issuers, network and acceptance systems already in place, the adoption of eRupi vouchers is expected to gain good traction,” he added.
NTT Data Payment Services CFO Rahul Jain said, “Initially introduced during the pandemic as payment vouchers for specific purposes, eRupi vouchers were vital in facilitating immediate cashtransfers into recipients’ bank accounts. The government utilised these vouchers to promote Covid vaccinations through private infrastructure. ”
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The wider appllication will result in the usage of e-Rupi vouchers expanding significantly, replacing traditional gift cards and playing a larger role in one-time benefit transfers. Unlike plastic cards with embedded chips, which incur substantial costs for banks due to logistics, printing and delivery expenses, UPI prepaid vouchers eliminate these overheads. They can be delivered directly to a user’s phone as a QR code image or an SMS string. To enhance security, an OTP authentication layer is incorporated into the process.
Industry sources have highlighted a key advantage of the new e-Rupi platform. Besides the initial IT costs for banks, no additional infrastructure is necessary for the acceptance of these vouchers, which will be facilitated through mobile phone apps.
