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Railway impetus a major boost for RuPay cards

  • Posted By
    10Pointer
  • Categories
    Economy
  • Published
    22nd Feb, 2021

Context

Indian Railways has advised its staff to convert their debit/ATM cards to RuPay powered cards.

What are RuPay Cards?

  • RuPay is the first-of-its-kind domestic Card payment network of India, with wide acceptance at ATMs, POS devices and e-commerce websites across India.
  • Like other payments gateways like VISA/MasterCard/Maestro.
  • RuPay is developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which is complete indigenous product which will save India’s forex and give push to financial inclusion.

What is NPCI?

  • National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India, is an initiative of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, for creating a robust Payment & Settlement Infrastructure in India.
  • It has been incorporated as a “Not for Profit” Company under the provisions of Section 25 of Companies Act 1956 (now Section 8 of Companies Act 2013), with an intention to provide infrastructure to the entire Banking system in India for physical as well as electronic payment and settlement systems.
  • NPCI also strives for financial inclusion in the county

Important initiatives of NPCI

IMPS

  • Immediate Payment Service provides robust & real time fund transfer which offers an instant, 24X7, interbank electronic fund transfer service

NACH

  • National Automated Clearing House for Banks, Financial Institutions, Corporates and Government a web based solution to facilitate interbank, high volume, electronic transactions which are repetitive and periodic in nature

ABPS

  • Aadhaar Payment Bridge System is helping the Government and Government agencies in making the Direct Benefit Transfers for various Central as well as State sponsored schemes.

AePS

  • Aadhaar enabled Payment System, to access these funds at door step & drive the financial inclusion in India and To extend the convenience of biometric to merchant payments

NFS

  • National Financial Switch is the largest network of shared Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in India facilitating interoperable cash withdrawal, card to card funds transfer and interoperable cash deposit transactions among other value added services in the country.

UPI

  • Unified Payments Interface has been termed as the revolutionary product in the payment system.

BBPS

  • Bharat Bill Payment System is offering one-stop bill payment solution for all recurring payments 

NETC (Fastag)

  • National Electronic Toll Collection program to meet the electronic tolling requirements of the Indian market.

*99# (USSD based)

  • USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) based mobile banking service

Other measures for Financial Inclusion

  • Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana
  • Direct benefit transfer (DBT)
  • MUDRA
  • Insurance Schemes: Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, Atal Bima Yojna, PM-Fasal Bima Yojna

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