NPCI focusing on new customers to expand RuPay credit card base

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is focussing on gaining new customers to expand the indigenous RuPay-enabled credit card base, as the retail payments umbrella body is still a new entrant in this space, a top official of the company said.

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"If you look at the credit cards, we moved into the market recently and we look at the market share of new customers. In the past 18 months, around 12-15 per cent of the new issuances (credit card) is happening on RuPay," NPCI Chief Operating Officer Praveena Rai told PTI in an interaction.

The homegrown NPCI is an umbrella organisation for facilitating retail payments and settlement in India through the RuPay gateway. It is an initiative of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) to create a robust payment and settlement system.

"For RuPay, it is important for us that we expand the reach and distribution of RuPay cards. RuPay is a strong player in the debit card and prepaid card space. We are now focussing our attention to establish strongly in the credit card space as well," Rai said.

She added that in the past two years, the market in India is going from about 40-42 million credit cards to about 65 million credit cards. "So, there is an unmet demand and consumers are wanting more and

RuPay being a scheme for India, we believe that we will be able to address this demand in the market,"

Rai said that to expand the base, it has to do two things. One is already there that all the credit card issuers in India should be enabled to issue RuPay cards. And, the second is to forge partnerships that can add value to the customers.

She said many of the credit card issuers have been issuing RuPay cards for the past two years and on the partnership front, the intent is to provide a good proposition to customers.

Every customer segment has its own requirement. So, understanding those requirements for a particular partner as well as the merchant partner so that the product can be taken to the market are the key factors to expand the base, Rai said.

Product, technology and brand are the three components to take RuPay ahead, she said.

He added that these three need to work closely to deliver something that is really cutting edge and "that is our objective".

"We have to make a difference in the lives of customers. From the product side, we ensure that we cover all segments. So, we are not only for the privileged or only for the masses.

"Across the entire spectrum of users, we have a super-premium category, we have a premium category for the affluent, we have cards for the mass segment to cater to the financial inclusion agenda," the official said.

Then there is a gamut of credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards, she said.

"Here, I would like to say that in the past few years, even between e-commerce and physical payments, it is practically 50:50... So, we are available to all kinds of payments that a consumer wants to make," Rai said.

And, this is where technology starts coming in to provide a trustworthy experience for the user. Every time a card is used, it should work. "In the industry, we call it success rate."

NPCI has also introduced the electronic payment gateway Bharat Billpay and the success rate there is high. There are a lot of value-added propositions that have started getting created such, for example, the ability to set mandates or the autopay.

Besides, there is an EMI facility that has come in as functionality and, likewise, many other value-added features can come on this platform, she added.

Rai said NCPI is also working to provide tokenisation-based digital transactions on payment apps and the facility will be out soon.

Tokenisation refers to the replacement of credit and debit card details with an alternate code called 'token' so as to secure a digital transaction. A token is unique for each card.