As international payment service systems like VISA complain of promotion by the Indian government, RuPay continues to grow leaps and bounds. The Indian government under PM Modi has promoted homegrown RuPay for years, posing a challenge to Visa and Mastercard in the fast-growing payments market.
RuPay accounted for 63% of India’s 952 million debit and credit cards as of November 2020, up from just 15% in 2017. International card players like Visa and MasterCard have been complaining ever since RuPay was made part of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.
RBI data reveals that by November 30, 2020 there were 60.36 crore RuPay cards issued and it had a total market share of over 60 per cent of the total cards issued. A significant proportion of RuPay cards is in the nature of debit cards with only 9.7 lakh credit cards issued as on November 30, 2020. RuPay provides certain benefits to banks and free accident insurance up to Rs 1 lakh which set it apart from other card networks.
RuPay was launched in March 2012 with the idea of having a domestic card network which will reduce dependence on foreign players. The RBI embargo on new card issuance by MasterCard in India which came into effect on July 22, 2021 opened up the market for RuPay. At present, RuPay is the market leader in terms of overall card issuances followed by Visa but lags behind in credit cards and spends. RuPay, along with UPI comes under the Zero-MDR norm by the Indian government, which means no fees can be levied to merchants for transactions on these networks.
As an indication of its wider reach and acceptance, 1,158 banks including public, private, co-operative and rural banks have issued RuPay cards. RuPay cards are accepted at 97% of all PoS terminals in India, and by online payment systems like PayPal and Amazon Pay. To expand the acceptance of RuPay into foreign markets, NPCI has signed a memorandum of understanding with UK based PPRO Financial on 17 November 2021.
Dr. Niranjan B Poojar 
Balaji Subramanian