In a big boost to the Modi government, Rupay, homegrown card payment network, which constituted just 0.6 percent in market share in 2013, now controls half of the segment, ahead of Visa, Mastercard and other players combined. The transaction through RuPay card rose to Rs 2,347 crore till May 2018 from Rs 1,929 crore at the end of March 2018. The RuPay cards can be used at 1.45 lakhs ATMs, 26.14 lakhs POS terminals and various e-commerce websites across the length and breadth of the country.
More than 459 million transactions, constituting more than half of total transactions, are being made in India using RuPay. In June last year, Rupay became the largest payment card network, piping VISA, when it touched the base of 375 million transactions.
Reasons behind RuPay’s rise
Among the main reasons behind the rise of homegrown card payment network is the lower processing fee. In comparison to Visa and Mastercard, the transactions carried through RuPay attract 23 percent lower processing fee. At present, the card is accepted at 39 PSU and private banks 39 banks. The GST Council recently announced cashback up to Rs 100 on digital payments through Rupay card and BHIM app on a pilot basis in order to promote the cashless transactions.
In a Facebook post recently, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had also mentioned about the growth of RuPay and UPI. He had said that RuPay’s total transactions had risen to $1.15 billion as of September. This statement comes after Mastercard told the US government that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is using nationalism to promote RuPay.
Attributing Rupay’s rise to PM Narendra Modi’s efforts, BJP’s twitter handle on November 9 said: “Indigenous card payment network, RuPay now captures 50% of market share in India, up from a meagre 0.6% in 2013. This has been possible due to Modi govt’s unwavering push to financial inclusion schemes, focusing on making financial services accessible to the ‘less privileged’,” BJP twitter handle posted.”
