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NPCI in talks to take UPI, RuPay to global markets, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) is in talks with several global agencies to expand the global footprint of indigenous payment networks RuPay and UPI (unified payment interface), possibly in West Asia, the United States, and Europe.

“We are aiming to expand RuPay and UPI acceptance across world destinations, where Indians travel for holidays, study or profession or even stay,” said Ritesh Shukla, chief executive of NPCI International Payments (NIPL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of NPCI for international business. “We are in talks with global agencies through which we are looking to introduce RuPay and UPI to the world.”

Those international agencies may include regulatory authorities, large banks, fintech companies, or even umbrella payment organisations from respective countries.

Some of the likely destinations include Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, European and North American countries, Mauritius and Singapore, payment industry insiders said.

Shukla did not disclose names of agencies NIPL is in talks with, but a senior payment industry executive told ET, “US-based Zelle or The Clearing House could well be partners.”

Zelle Network is a payment platform in the US that deals with banks and credit unions while The Clearing House Payments Company operates core payments system infrastructure in the US.

Zelle Network and The Clearing House did not reply to ET’s queries as of press time Sunday.

The development comes at a time when global payment giant MasterCard is facing regulatory roadblocks in India.

The Reserve Bank of India had last week banned MasterCard from issuing new cards for non-compliance with data storage localisation rules. The development will likely prompt some banks using its services to reach out to RuPay, industry experts said.

RuPay already holds more than 60 per cent market share in terms of number of cards in India, outpacing both MasterCard and Visa which had till recently dominated the turf.

Launched in 2016, UPI reported a 285 per cent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) in payment volume since 2017 to hit $457 billion in 2020.

To take UPI payment system to global markets, NIPL would be reaching out to tie up with existing QR (quick response) code infrastructure operators.

RuPay acceptance can be made available through point of sale (PoS) terminals and ATMs.

Bhutan recently became the first country to adopt UPI standards for its QR code. It is also the second country after Singapore to have Bhim-UPI acceptance at merchant locations, NIPL had said last week.

Both UPI and RuPay are payment services delivered through NPCI’s multi-rail payment network.



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Credit card spends limping back to normalcy, but stay lower in Q1, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Personal Finance

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If you thought that the over 20% discount offered on credit for your Swiggy offer is exceptional, you may expect more.

Credit card spends are likely to be lower in the first quarter despite a recovery in June. Analysts see credit card spends dropping 8% in the first quarter of June 2021 over the fourth quarter of the last fiscal.

At Rs 54,700 crore, credit card spends in May 2021 were still higher than the monthly spends between April and September 2020.

In April 2021, credit card spends totalled Rs 59,200 crore, higher than the monthly spends witnessed between April and September of 2020.

Going by the trend of UPI transactions in June, credit card spends are also likely to be high in June.

UPI June transactions

UPI enabled digital transactions surged 11.6 per cent month-on-month to Rs 5.47 lakh crore in June this year, according to the NPCI data.

In May 2021, the UPI (unified payments interface) transactions stood at Rs 4.91 lakh crore.

In terms of numbers, there were as many as 2.80 billion (280 crore) transactions during the month under review, as against 2.53 billion (253 crore) in May, according to the data.

NPCI’s other digital payments channels—such as Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS), National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC), Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) and Immediate Payment Service (IMPS)—all recorded monthly growth in June.

The number of transactions on BBPS, primarily used for automated bill payments, grew nearly 16% sequentially to 45.47 million transactions in June. For Fastag, the growth was even sharper—at 35.34% to 157 million transactions—indicating an increase in mobility.

Similarly, IMPS grew to 303.7 million transactions in June from 279.8 million in May while AePS — which is used for cash withdrawals at micro ATMs, subsidy payouts and domestic remittance—grew to 87.5 million transactions from 84.2 million.

Card companies

Despite a ban on issuing new credit cards, HDFC Bank retained the largest market share at 27 per cent in spends in May while SBI Cards held 18 per cent.

Credit card spends limping back to normalcy, but stay lower in Q1

In December 2020, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred HDFC Bank from making new digital launches and issuing new credit cards following repeated outages on the bank’s digital channels.

HIt by the ban on HDFC Bank issuing credit cards and economic slowdown, the number of credit cards outstanding grew just 1.9 per cent 622.6 lakh, as against a growth of 2.2 per cent during April-June 2020 to 5.74 lakh, according to RBI data. The number of new cards issued has been falling every month since January 2021 and was down to 21 lakh in April from 70 lakh in January, with most card issuers seeing slow growth. Monthly spends per card for the industry declined to Rs 9,500 in April from an average of Rs 10,500 over the past six months, according to analysts.



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LIC Cards launches RuPay Prepaid Gift Card ‘Shagun’ Powered by IDBI Bank, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

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A contactless prepaid Gift Card – ‘Shagun’ has been launched by LIC Cards Services Limited (LIC CSL) in collaboration with IDBI Bank on the RuPay platform with intent to promote cashless ways of gifting and present a wide range of end-use choices. It also presents itself as a future foray into the market of e-Gift Cards.

“We are delighted to partner with IDBI Bank and RuPay for the launch of LIC Gift Card powered by IDBI Bank on RuPay Platform. We believe that gifting is one of the biggest social interactions and social events in our society. We aim to enhance the value of digital transactions by providing a variety of benefits/cards thereby saving time and cost of transactions for both Gift Card buyer and recipient. LIC CSL has a vision to be the top Brand in Cards and Digital Payments, catering to all segments with geographical spread across the Country.” a spokesperson of LIC Cards Services Limited (LIC CSL) stated.

Shagun Gift card can be used at millions of merchant outlets and e-commerce websites in India to diversify spending options on the card. The card will provide users the freedom to make purchases at various merchant locations including departmental stores, petrol pumps, restaurants, jewelry stores, apparel stores, etc. They can also shop online, pay utility bills, book tickets for air, rail, bus, and so on through various mobile wallets and E-commerce portals or Apps using this card.

“In continuum with our on-going business synergies with LIC, we are glad to also have NPCI and LIC Cards Services Ltd as partners on-board for this initiative. This product has been curated keeping in mind the distinct privileges for the cardholders as well as the convenience of the contactless payment feature.” added Rakesh Sharma, MD & CEO, IDBI Bank.

“We look forward to continued collaboration with LIC CSL and IDBI Bank to take this product to the masses in coming months and further strengthen our customer base.” said Dilip Asbe, MD & CEO, NPCI.



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ICICI gets 2 million customers of other banks on iMobile Pay, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

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‘iMobile Pay’ is ICICI Bank’s mobile banking application whose revamped version is now being used by two million customers of other banks pan India. The bank has reached this figure in a span of just five months after making ‘iMobile Pay’ open to all, including customers of other banks.

ICICI Bank opened its mobile banking platform ‘iMobile Pay’ to customers of all banks in December 2020. It was a first-in-the-industry initiative that provided the significant convenience of interoperability, as it enabled users of any bank to link their account to the app and begin transacting digitally. It also offered them access to an entire range of ICICI Bank services including savings account, home loan, credit card, personal loan among others.

“ICICI Bank has always believed in introducing innovations that simplify banking for customers. In line with this philosophy, the ICICI Bank was the first to introduce a mobile banking app in the country in 2008, called ‘iMobile’. The Bank has transformed the app and renamed it ‘iMobile Pay’ five months ago to offer interoperability so that anyone, including customers of other banks, can experience the benefits of hassle-free payments and digital banking of ICICI Bank through this app. This was made possible by leveraging NPCI’s interoperable infrastructure.” said Bijith Bhaskar, Head- Digital Channels & Partnership, ICICI Bank in a statement.

“Many customers are entering into a new relationship with the Bank after downloading the app. They are opening savings accounts and applying for a credit card, home loan and personal loan among others.” he added.

The ‘pay to contact’ feature enables the customers to send money either to a mobile number or a UPI ID of their contacts, who are registered on any payment app or a digital wallet. In addition to this, features like ‘scan to pay’, bill payments, ‘check balance’ have seen maximum usage, as quoted by the bank. It has also added bill payment services on the app, to enable payments for DTH, utility services such as electricity, gas and water, FASTag recharge (including that of other banks), insurance and mobile postpaid among others.



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RBI, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

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Bulk payment system, National Automated Clearing House (NACH) will be operational all days of the week effective from August 1, 2021. NACH is operated by NPCI and facilitates one-to-many credit transfer such as payment of dividend, interest, salary and pension.

RBI said, “NACH has emerged as a popular and prominent digital mode of direct benefit transfer (DBT) to large number of beneficiaries. This has helped transfer of government subsidies during the present COVID-19 in a timely and transparent manner. NACH is currently available only on the days when banks are functional. In the interest of customer convenience, and to take advantage of the availability of RTGS on all days of the year, it is proposed to make available NACH on all days of the week throughout the year, effective August 1, 2021.”

NACH has enabled large scale direct benefit transfer programmes of several government schemes to a large number of beneficiaries and helped government transfer subsidies during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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ICICI Bank links UPI ID facility to its ‘Pockets’ digital wallet, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

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ICICI Bank announced the launch of a facility of linking a UPI (Unified Payments Interface) ID to its digital wallet ’Pockets’, marking a departure from the current practice that demands such IDs be linked with a savings bank account. The Bank has collaborated with NPCI to link its ‘Pockets’ digital wallet to the UPI network. This initiative allows users to conduct small-value daily transactions using UPI directly from their ‘Pockets’ wallet in a safe and secure manner.

Customers who use ‘Pockets’ can now send and receive money directly from and to their ‘Pockets’ wallet balance without using their savings bank account. The UPI ID can be used by users of the ‘Pockets’ digital wallet to make person-to-person (P2P) payments, such as sending money to any Individual’s bank account or paying to a contact. They can also undertake person to merchant (P2M) payments like paying online at merchant sites or paying by scanning QR codes.

Bijith Bhaskar, Head- Digital Channels & Partnership, ICICI Bank said, “Our research suggests that users are keen to link their UPI ID with their digital wallet, so that they can directly use the balance in the wallet for smaller transactions while using their savings account only for the larger ones. Armed with this insight, we are delighted to have worked closely with NPCI to introduce this unique innovative solution in digital banking.”

Praveena Rai, COO, NPCI said, “This initiative will further democratize access to UPI and make it ubiquitous with digital payments by allowing consumers to directly pay through their digital wallets, in addition to the facility of paying from their bank accounts. UPI is a one-stop solution to payments of all kinds, both P2M and P2P, and this facility will provide an impetus to the burgeoning digital ecosystem in India.”



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Finance ministry requests health, home ministries for vaccination of bank employees on priority basis, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

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The union finance ministry has requested the health and home ministries for issuing instructions for enabling COVID-19 vaccination of employees of banks and National Payments Corporation of India on priority basis.

This will go a long way in assuring bank employees about safety of themselves and their families and also boost their morale in continuing to provide their services to customers even in these difficult times when the fresh wave has swept many states, the finance ministry in its recent communication said.

Out of total strength of 13.5 lakh employees in the banking sector, about 600 unfortunate deaths due to COVID-19 were recorded, as per the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) data.

In percentage terms, 0.04 per cent of total strength lost their lives.

The communication to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Home Affairs emphasised important role of bankers during disbursal and withdrawal of benefits transferred under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana.

Similarly, it said, the reliance on digital mode of payments increased and employees of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) played critical role in ensuring unhindered services.

The IBA in the last month had written a letter addressed to Secretary Health and Family Welfare for inclusion of bank employees for vaccination on priority basis given their role their important role in running the economy.

The association had requested the ministry for free vaccination on priority basis.

With the new variant of mutant virus, the risk has increased manifold for those who are not vaccinated, the IBA had said.

Quoting observation of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, IBA had said the committee appreciated the efforts and pain taken by the banking sector for providing uninterrupted and seamless banking facility during the COVID-19 outbreak.

While recognising good work done by the banking sector, the committee emphasised that they be declared COVID-19 warriors, IBA letter to Health Secretary said.



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Finance Ministry calls for vaccination of all bank and NPCI employees on priority

Banking & Finance

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The Finance Ministry has called for urgent Covid-19 vaccination for employees of all banks and the National Payments Corporation of India, irrespective of their age.

In a letter, the Department of Financial Services in the Finance Ministry has asked the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, to consider Covid vaccination on a priority basis for bank and NPCI employees, pointing out that “they are on the frontline and deal with customers and critical infrastructure for seamless banking and payment system”.

Bank employees have worked through the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. Bank unions have been requesting that bank staff be treated as frontline workers and are vaccinated as early as possible.

The letter comes amidst the second wave of the pandemic and concerns over mutant strains.

Data with the Indian Banks’ Association reveals that there have been 600 deaths due to Covid-19 in the banking industry as of December 31, 2020. The sector has about 13.5 lakh workers.

“Bank employees have played a critical role over the past year in ensuring that bank branches remain open and functional, and are providing the complete suite of banking services to their customers,” the DFS noted in its letter.

NPCI staff, too, have played a critical role, it said.

The DFS has also received representations from the IBA, HDFC Bank and NPCI on the issue.

At present, the Covid-19 vaccination is available for those above 45 years of age.

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SBI and NPCI tie-up to push UPI adoption on YONO, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The State Bank of India (SBI), country’s largest lender and The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), umbrella body of retail and digital payments have joined hands to launch a dedicated campaign to focus on deepening the reach of UPI transactions across all sections of the population.

This joint initiative aims at encouraging users of SBI’s banking and lifestyle platform YONO to opt for UPI payments. Apart from this, the campaign will also help in educating them about UPI’s benefits so that there are more and more UPI users in the ecosystem.

Ravindra Pandey, Strategy & Chief Digital Officer, SBI said, “UPI has been witnessing a strong month-on-month growth which is a testament of customers’ willingness to adopt digital payments. In this FY, the YONO platform recorded 5.30 million transactions worth Rs. 2086 crore. UPI is currently one of the most preferred digital payment modes in India with around 207 banks linked to it and SBI was leading the segment with 664.75 million transactions, as of January 2021.”

YONO has observed 34 lakh UPI registrations since its inception in 2017, with over 62.5 lakh transactions worth more than Rs. 2,520 crore at current daily average of nearly 27,000 transactions (in last 30 days).

Praveena Rai, COO, NPCI said, “We are pleased to partner with SBI to strengthen the digital payments ecosystem by promoting UPI awareness among YONO users. Customers just need to know their UPI ID and use it so they can enjoy the convenience of making or receiving payment from their YONO app to any other bank or payment app.”



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Year-end pressure hits fund transfers via IMPS, UPI in millions, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Several customers could not transfer funds instantly in the first two days of the new financial year as the core banking systems at some banks failed to process IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) or UPI (Unified Payment Interface) transactions.

Bank systems were clogged due to year-end system maintenance. Transactions were delayed for more than 24 hours, which otherwise would have been possible in a few seconds. Customers of top banks with large retail interfaces are said to have suffered the most.

This triggered a flood of complaints on Twitter even as National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an umbrella organisation of retail payments and settlements, issued a clarification. The latest outage was restricted to a few large banks and highlights the risks of 24×7 payments systems with more transactions moving online. An estimated 4.5 lakh transactions have been affected, say market experts.

“For both IMPS and UPI to function well, availability of the banks’ Core Banking Systems is mandatory,” said Dillip Asbe, MD and CEO at NPCI. “However, they were not functioning in full strength due to the financial year-end processing, which is carried out on April 1 every year. We acknowledged that on social media.”

On April 1, IMPS and UPI are estimated to have reported about 9.7 and 76 million transactions. The very next day, those numbers inched up to 10.8 million and 90 million. In those two days, volumes were broadly 5-15 percent lower than then an average usual day.

The financial year end closing had led to some UPI and IMPS transaction failures at a few banks,” NPCI tweeted on April 2 post noon. “We have observed that most of these bank systems are back to normal since last evening. Customers may avail uninterrupted IMPS and UPI services.”

Bankers said that the failure rate for transactions was much higher than normal on April 1 as the down time for core banking systems for some banks extended as they updated for the new financial year.

“It impacted some banks for a long period. If the core banking for bank ‘A’ does not respond it means transactions to and from that bank do not go through,” said a senior bank executive.

It seems there were more than one bank which was impacted but it was not a widespread systemic issue,” said the person.

To be sure, the estimated failure of transactions at 4.5 lakh were less than 4.5% of the average 10 to 12 million daily transactions managed by the NPCI. However, it is much higher than the less than 0.50% failure rates the system faces in normal courses.

“But don’t forget UPI and IMPS are 24×7 systems; so these issues can occur sometimes,” said another senior bank executive.



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