Managing cash distress with RuPay Card!
If cash distress and queuing outside is getting over your nerves you need to consider getting a RuPay Card. Till December 31 National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has waived switching fee for all RuPay issuing and receiving banks for points of sales (PoS) and e-commerce transactions to flourish easily. Earlier the charges were at Rs. 0.60 to card issuing banks and Rs. 0.30 to card accepting banks. While this might look as an attempt to promote card transactions, there is more to it than meets the eyes. Read below to know all about RuPay Card and how it can be your best friend during hard times such as this.
What is RuPay?RuPay was issued in March 2012 by NPCI in the interest of fulfilling Reserve Bank of India’s desire to have a domestic, open loop, and multilateral system of payment in India. E-payments were made easiest when RuPay came into play, giving tough competition to MasterCard and Visa.
Where can you use it?RuPay is accepted and issued by all major banks in India. All ATMs and PoS terminals accept RuPay cards in India. It is also accepted on the International Discover Network. There are about 145,270 ATMs and 875,000 PoS terminals under RuPay platform. The same security PIN of RuPay Card can easily be used to make payments online across 10,000 e-commerce websites. One can also book airline tickets, railways tickets, bus tickets or pay bills using the card.
After the cash ban on November 9, it has been reported that the usage of RuPay Cards went up to 8 lakh transaction per day from an average of 4 lakh transactions daily in India. Amid all other card transactions, it has been found that RuPay has taken the lead.
SecureThe payments or transactions you carry out via RuPay are secured with a high end technology chip called EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa). It contains a micro processor circuit embedded with information about the card holder. You can carry out large transactions without having to worry about security issues.
Jan Dhan YojanaPradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was already giving a major boost to RuPay cards. When accounts of poor and rural people were being opened, there was heavy criticism that these people wouldn’t benefit from having accounts or having cards for transactions. Under this scheme alone, about 178 million RuPay cards were issued. Rural banks were encouraged to promote the issue of this card to all account holders.
In a surprising wave of development, it has recently been found that most first time PoS users had RuPay cards. The transaction is even easier than swiping the card at an ATM where you have to follow the procedures all alone. At PoS terminals, there are staff who swipe your card and you are just to enter the PIN code discreetly.
Kisan card for farmersWhile haters are simply going on with business, PM Modi did envision all of this since a long time or so it seems. RuPay has been providing a unified ‘Kisan Card’ that are issued by banks under Kisan Credit Card making transactions easier for farmers across the country.
- Punjab Grains Procurement Corporation pays commission agents through the RuPay Debit Card.
- Kotak Mahindra partnered with RuPay for a financial setup for dairy farmers across 75 cooperative societies of Amul. Under this initiative payments are made directly into their accounts on the same day of the sale of milk.
Benefits over other cards1. Low processing fee: The processing fee for RuPay card is comparatively lower than the other debit/credit cards which usually are known to increase and decrease cost at their discretion.
2. International transactions made easy: Usually when you make an international transaction with your card, the cost incurred is high. With RuPay the cost is much lower since processing is done within the country.
3. Faster transactions: Since transaction is done within India, it is faster as compared to the time taken by other card issuers.
4. No quarterly fee: With RuPay, there is absolutely no quarterly fee deducted for using or keeping the card dormant.
