2.46 lakh physical payment devices installed in smaller towns under Payment Infra Development Fund: RBI

Nearly 2.46 lakh physical payment acceptance devices were installed in smaller towns under the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund till September, the Reserve Bank of India said in a statement.

Physical devices include Point of Sale (PoS), mPoS (mobile PoS), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), and PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network).

The Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) Scheme, operationalised by the Reserve Bank from January 1, 2021, subsidises deployment of PoS infrastructure (physical and digital modes) in tier-3 to tier-6 centres and north eastern states of the country.

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From August 26, 2021, beneficiaries of PM Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi Scheme) in tier-1 and tier-2 centres are also covered.

Under the scheme, as many as 55,36,678 digital devices (including, inter-operable QR code-based payments such as UPI QR, and Bharat QR) were also installed in tier 3, 4, 5 and 6 centres, and north-eastern states.

Contribution to the PIDF is made by the Reserve Bank, authorised card networks and card issuing banks.

The RBI said the corpus currently stands at Rs 614 crore.

Acquiring institutions (banks and non-banks), registered under the PIDF scheme, commit region-wise deployment targets, submit deployment statistics and claim subsidy for devices which fulfil the prescribed criteria.