“One97 Communications (OCL), parent company of Paytm, has rolled out “Paytm Payment Protect”. The group insurance plan has been launched in association with HDFC ERGO General Insurance. The plan has been introduced to insure transactions made via Unified Payments Interface (UPI) across all apps and wallets. This plan intends to enhance the experience of digital payments and increase the adoption of the same in India. The insurance offering comes at a price of as low as Rs 30 per year.”

“NOW Money, the GCC’s first mobile banking solution focused on financial inclusion, and ThetaRay, a leading provider of AI-powered transaction monitoring technology, today announced a collaboration to implement ThetaRay’s cloud-based AML solution to monitor cross-border payments and support in the prevention of financial crimes and money laundering on the fintech’s payments platform. NOW Money selected ThetaRay’s advanced SONAR anti-money laundering solution with combined transaction monitoring and sanctions list screening to stay a step ahead of financial crime by uncovering both known and unknown money-laundering crimes, as well as preventing attempts to violate sanctions in real time. The new partnership is essential as the number of overbroad money transfers continues to grow, with the value of remittances from the UAE being Dh 2.88 trillion* (780 billion USD) in Q1 2022.”

“A month into India’s pilot project for using an official digital rupee for inter-bank and institutional transactions, stakeholders are seeing no benefits, several bankers said. Seven bankers told Reuters that using the e-rupee of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was much the same as internet-based banking that users were already satisfied with. The RBI has devised the e-rupee basically as a digital alternative to cash – one using blockchain distributed-ledger technology, to some degree anonymous and most relevant to consumers and retailers. But in the initial trial banks have been using it for settlements with each other – with no particular advantage, according to bankers.”

“In a bid to enable financial inclusion for the country’s SMEs, HDFC Bank, India’s largest private bank, has partnered with embedded FinTech platform, Mintoak to create an ecosystem for them, starting with payments. HDFC Bank’s SmartHub Vyapar was developed by Mintoak’s API-first, cloud-native tech to seamlessly deliver payment acceptance and access to commerce enablement solutions for the merchant in one place. Today, SMEs are in digital chaos with multiple QRs and payment apps apart from other digital elements like bookkeeping apps, POS solutions etc. While most of these options are widely available for the merchants, the sheer effort of managing them is becoming a distraction. Consolidation of payments on one platform is a way forward that can ease the merchant’s pain and allow them to concentrate efforts on their business and key revenue drivers. Amongst the many players jostling for relevance at the merchant counter, this consolidation depends on two aspects (1) Technology that matches or is better than what merchants are currently using, and (2) Offered by someone merchants can trust.”

“The Payments Council of India (PCI), the apex body of payments and settlement players in the country, has launched an initiative named ‘Project Pratima’ to standardise icons for payments across apps and platforms to make it easier for customers to identify digital payment icons. Gaurav Chopra, Executive Director of PCI told Moneycontrol, “It is a project which PCI has undertaken to standardise icons of most common use cases in payments. The main idea behind this is to safeguard people against fraud and increase adoption of digital payments. Standardised icons will help users identify payments actions correctly.”   Pratima means ‘icon’ in Sanskrit. The project’s website says that it aims to improve the trust, security, and familiarity of digital payment icons in a bid to avoid instances of customers falling prey to fraud or making mistakes while conducting payment transactions.”

“India has decided to extend the deadline on capping the share of digital payment transactions by about two years to Dec. 31, 2024, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said on Friday. The NPCI had said in late 2020 that payment firms will not be allowed to process more than 30% of the total volume of transactions on UPI from Jan 1. The move comes as a breather to companies like Walmart Inc’s PhonePe and Alphabet Inc’s Google, which are among the leading digital money transfer apps in the country.”

“The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced its first retail digital Rupee pilot will commence on December 1, 2022. “The pilot will test the robustness of the entire process of digital rupee creation, distribution and retail usage in real time,” said RBI. The pilot works like this: Participating banks distribute the e-rupee (e₹-R), in the same denominations available as notes and coins, into digital wallets stored on mobile phones. These deposits can in turn be used for transactions among individuals, or to acquire goods and services from merchants. Merchant payments can be made using QR codes. The e₹-R will not earn any interest but can be converted to other forms of money. RBI said the digital currency would offer the same features of physical cash – like trust, safety and settlement finality. In late October, RBI detailed that the pilot would include “closed user groups comprising customers and merchants,” but operation-related specifics would be revealed in “due course.” The first phase of the pilot will start off with four banks (State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank) in four cities (Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar.) It will later expand to four more banks (Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank) and nine more cities (Ahmedabad, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna and Shimla).”

“India’s federal government has released a new draft bill for public comment on personal data protection after months of extensive consultations with relevant stakeholders. Labeled the Digital Data Protection Act 2022, the reworked draft bill has been described by the union minister for railways, communications, electronics and information technology Ashwini Vaishnaw as balanced in scope and favorable for India’s digital economic growth, reports the Financial Times (FT).”

“Airtel Payments Bank announced the launch of a face authentication-based savings bank account opening for customers. The payments bank said the facility would further ease the account opening, making it seamless and convenient for customers. Airtel Payments Bank is the first Payments Bank in the country to offer this facility.The payments bank said the new facility would help business correspondents (BCs) of the bank to open an account just by undertaking face authentication through electronic know-your-customers (e-KYC).The authentication is processed using a newly developed mobile application by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the payments bank said, adding that, the business correspondent will now only need a smartphone to open an account. The bank will make this facility available across all its 500,000 banking points by the end of this year, it said.”

“While the unified payments interface (UPI) transactions race to reach a billion transactions per day mark, a potential confrontation has been developing between regulations that call for UPI to remain free and Reserve Bank of India regulations that permit banks to cap the number of withdrawals from savings accounts. According to research by Ashish Das of IIT-Bombay, this disagreement can be resolved if the RBI assumes responsibility for UPI payment costs in the same way that it does for currency transaction costs. According to the report, certain banks have restricted the number of debits made to savings accounts. The report comes as the RBI is looking for feedback on payment fees. The government, on the other hand, is adamant that UPI should retain its freedom. Although the central bank has not commented on restricting transactions, it had previously suggested that banks could set a limit on the number of withdrawals from savings accounts. Fintech firms and banks have stated that UPI transaction costs must be borne by someone, at least for merchant payments. The research reads, “On the one side, there is a regulation that supports limiting the number of withdrawals, but on the other, the RBI has a goal for using financial services and moving the country toward a cashless society through digital methods through their financial inclusion agenda. The two policies conflict with one another.””

“In November 2019, Alphabet-owned Google wrote to the US Federal Reserves, asking the central bank to design its upcoming instant payments system FedNow on the lines of India’s Unified Payments Interface or UPI. It said, an open payments system fosters collaboration between technology and financial service providers, adding that India’s approach attained “amazing” results for banks, consumers and other players within the payments ecosystem. In 2021, UPI processed around 39 billion transactions totalling $940 billion, equivalent to 31% of India’s GDP. As if on cue, in August 2020, the National Payments Corporation of India, which operates UPI, launched NPCI International Payments, a subsidiary tasked with exporting NPCI’s indigenously developed offerings like UPI and the RuPay card network to foreign markets.”

“India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), published a report titled “Concept Note on Central Bank Digital Currency” Friday. The 51-page document explains the “objectives, choices, benefits, and risks of issuing” a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in India, the RBI described, adding that it has been exploring the pros and cons of introducing a central bank digital currency “for some time.” The RBI clarified that the upcoming CBDC, also referred to as e₹ (digital rupee) “is substantially not different from banknotes, but being digital it is likely to be easier, faster, and cheaper.””

“The Reserve Bank of India will soon commence limited pilot launches of a central bank backed digital rupee for specific use cases, it said in a concept paper released on Friday. The RBI has been exploring the pros and cons of a central bank digital currency for some time and is working towards a strategy to implement it in a phased manner, it said. Use cases are being examined for an e-rupee in a way that there is minimal or no disruption to the financial system, the RBI added.”

“New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made it mandatory for all credit and debit card data used in online, point-of-sale, and in-app transactions to be replaced with unique tokens by September 30 this year. This added layer of security by way of tokenisation is expected to enhance user’s digital payment experience.”

“In a strategic move to further strengthen its cross-border payment solutions, TerraPay, a leading global payments infrastructure group today announced its partnership with NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), the International arm of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). This association with NIPL will allow Indian customers and merchants in India with an active Unified Payments Interface Id (UPI Id) to make and accept cross-border payments seamlessly by leveraging TerraPay’s agile infrastructure and the UPI network.”

“In just six years, UPI has become the most popular way Indians transact online. The mobile electronics payments system was used for over 6.57 billion transactions in the world’s second largest internet market last month. Now, it’s taking steps to supercharge its growth. The payments network, which was built by a coalition of banks, is India’s attempt to challenge card companies in an open market, bring hundreds of millions of people into the fold of digital payments and curb the proliferation of corruption.”

“Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) no longer need to pay routine bills of their families in India by sending money to their India-based accounts. They can now pay directly from wherever they are overseas by using a new government bill payment portal. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed NRIs to pay bills through Bharat Bill Pay System (BBPS), a payment portal of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an initiative of RBI and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) enabling digital payments and settlement systems in India.”

“Cashfree Payments, a leading payment and API banking solutions company, is enabling door-step payment collection for DASH, a tech-led go-to-market platform for brands in Tier-3 towns. DASH will be using Cashfree Payments’ point of sale solution, ‘ softPOS ‘ , to offer this service to more than 2,000 small merchants in Tier-3 areas. softPOS is a point of sale (POS) solution which can convert an Android phone into a POS machine. Businesses can use the app to generate UPI QR codes, create payment links, and enable card payments via NFC-based Tap and Pay, and also record and manage cash collections. softPOS also offers payment methods such as wallets, EMI etc. through this solution.”

“India and Brazil are the latest countries to jump on the CBDC bandwagon by announcing upcoming pilot projects. The move comes as countries like China and The Bahamas have already launched their CBDCs, with others pursuing similar plans. Both emerging countries are planning to start a pilot project this year. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reportedly asked four state-run banks to run a pilot Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project, testing its digital rupee ahead of a possible rollout in this financial year. The RBI has chosen the State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India, and Bank of Baroda “to run the pilot internally,” according to a report by Money Control.”

“The national payments corporation of India (NPCI), reportedly, has directed the payment apps to stop charging platform fees for the Bharat bill payment system (BBPS) payments. This directive comes in line after a discussion paper related to such payment charges was released by Reserve Bank of India. The reports said that government is likely to treat the unified payments interface (UPI) as public good in which customers do not required paying. According to news reports, PhonePe, which has the largest share of UPI transactions in India, had also started taking payment charges on some of its recharges and other payments. Similarly, in July, Paytm also started charging INR 1 for various bill payments. It is on this ground, NPCI released the directive.”

“India has lifted business restrictions on American Express, once again permitting the U.S. giant to onboard new customers in the South Asian market after the firm demonstrated “satisfactory compliance” with local data storage rules, the local central bank said Wednesday. In a series of moves last year, the Reserve Bank of India indefinitely barred Mastercard, American Express and Diners Club from issuing new debit, credit or prepaid cards to customers over noncompliance with local data storage rules. The business restriction allowed the firms to continue to serve their existing customers in the country. India lifted the ban on Mastercard in June this year.”

“The Indian diaspora will soon be able to pay utility bills and other recurring payments like fees using the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS), the Reserve Bank announced on Friday. The RBI made it clear that the move is not driven by the need to attract more remittances at a time when the domestic currency is under pressure, nor it is the result of its efforts to minimise the spreads made by banks while converting currency. The Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) is an interoperable platform for standardised bill payments. Over 20,000 billers are part of the system, and more than 8 crore transactions are processed on a monthly basis.”

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday hailed the achievement of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions crossing 6 billion in July — the highest ever since its launch six years back. According to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), UPI reported 6.28 billion transactions worth Rs 10.62 trillion in July — an increase of 7 percent over June… In FY22, UPI processed more than 46 billion transactions amounting to over Rs 84.17 trillion, thus breaching the $1 trillion mark. UPI’s target is to process a billion transactions a day in the next five years. The UPI facility was launched on April 11, 2016, by then Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan.”

“In the meeting of the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee in June, it was decided that now UPI transactions can also be done with the help of credit cards. Work is progressing rapidly in this direction. National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) is in talks with several banks to allow transactions by scanning QR codes with the help of RuPay credit cards. To give relief to small merchants, they are also being considered for exemption in the MDR charge. Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) is the charge paid by the merchant to the bank for processing the payment. This can be up to 2-3 percent of the transaction. The bank charges up to a 2-3 percent merchant discount rate on credit card transactions from large shopkeepers. NPCI is considering giving relief to small shopkeepers from this charge.”

“The Indian crypto landscape lost some momentum this year as the government introduced two laws demanding crippling taxes on crypto-related unrealized gains and transactions. India’s first crypto law, which requires its citizens to pay a 30% tax on unrealized crypto gains, came into effect on April 1. A commotion among the Indian crypto community followed as investors and entrepreneurs tried to decipher the impact of the vague announcement with little or no success. Knowing that India’s second crypto law — a 1% tax deduction at source (TDS) on every transaction — would translate into an even greater impact on trading activities, numerous crypto entrepreneurs from India considered moving bases to friendlier jurisdictions.”