CNBCtv18.com
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that India and France have agreed on usage of United Payments Interface (UPI) mechanism."
The Economic Times
"The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is proposing that banks and card network providers like MasterCard, VISA and American Express cannot get into exclusive arrangements that curbs competition and puts the consumer at a disadvantage.Card issuer banks will henceforth have to issue cards from more than one network provider and will have to provide an option to customers to choose any one among the multiple card networks, RBI said in a draft circular."
Reserve Bank of India
"The Reserve Bank of India has today placed on its website the draft circular on Arrangements with Card Networks for issue of Debit, Credit and Prepaid Cards for feedback from stakeholders."
Cointelegraph
"The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is currently in discussions with its counterparts from at least 18 other countries on the possibility of cross-border payments using its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the “digital rupee.”"
Reuters
"India is shaping its digital payments system into a credit engine. It wants banks to offer small loans through the channel residents use to transfer money via their mobile phones. But while the latest official effort to accelerate financial inclusion is gaining traction and will finally allow banks to monetise the homegrown system, it will test the safe limits of growing lending fast."
CIO News
"Cashfree Payments, India’s leading payments and API banking company, announced the launch of CVV-free card payments for partner businesses. CVV-free payments allow customers to experience faster, smoother, and more convenient checkouts for saved(tokenized) cards on major networks such as Visa, Mastercard, and RuPay."
The Times of India
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the platform for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India, is planning to introduce a new way for feature phone users to make payments.
Business Insider
"In a bid to provide more payment options for Indians travellers abroad, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to allow Indian banks to issue RuPay prepaid forex cards. These cards can be used at ATMs, point of sale (PoS) machines, and online merchants overseas."
The Week
"Tide, the UK's leading SME-focused business financial platform in partnership with Transcorp International Limited, a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulated Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) license holder, today announced the launch of India's first recycled (rPVC[1]) Rupay card, along with MCT Cards & Technology Pvt. Ltd. and NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India)."
Reuters
"India will start withdrawing its highest value currency notes from circulation, the central bank said on Friday, in a move that economists said could boost bank deposits at a time of high credit growth."
NewsBytes
"Checking the CVV (card verification value) before making any payment is one of the hassles associated with credit or debit cards. India's homegrown card network Rupay has a solution for this: CVV-less payments.This would mean cardholders can make payments without reaching into their wallets. Let's see how RuPay's CVV-less payment works. Rupay's CVV-less payment experience is available to credit, debit, and prepaid cardholders. The feature is only available to those who have tokenized their cards on the merchant application or webpage."
Reuters
"India's antitrust body said an inquiry is needed into allegations that service fee charged for in-app payments by Google breach a competition watchdog directive, a regulatory order seen by Reuters showed on Friday."
CXOToday.com
"BharatPe Group, one of India’s leading names in the fintech industry, today announced that it will be rebranding PAYBACK India, the country’s largest multi-brand loyalty program to Zillion. This new brand identity is in line with the company’s vision to make Zillion ubiquitous to loyalty and rewards across the country. The new brand identity aims to target customers across age groups and add a new dimension to their overall shopping experience, across categories and brands."
The Hindu Businessline
"Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions declined in volume as well as value terms in April 2023 after peaking in the previous month. Transaction volumes declined 7.96 per cent month-on-month (m-o-m) in April 2023 to 796.29 crore against 865.16 crore in March 2023, per the National Payments Corporation of India’s “UPI Monthly Product Statistics”."
Biometric Update
"A move by the government of India to amend the Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance (GG) Rules, 2020, is attracting widespread criticism as experts say the plan would violate the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling which prevents private entities from performing Aadhaar authentication. This development comes as the government is reporting a jump in figures for digital ID authentication transactions for the month of March, with Aadhaar-powered KYC increasing by 16 percent."
Business Wire
"PPRO, the leading digital payments infrastructure provider, has signed a strategic agreement with NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) to offer global partners access to Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India’s fastest-growing, real-time payment system, for cross-border transactions. Today’s agreement, supported by a new framework co-developed with NIPL, paves the way for the first merchants to go live in the coming months."
Medium
"India’s largest retailer Reliance Retail is accepting the Reserve Bank of India’s Digital Rupee (e₹-R) Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Customers can pay with Digital Rupees at some Reliance Retail stores, TechCrunch reports. Shoppers will use a quick read (QR) code they scan with their phone to pay with digital rupees."
Reuters
"The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is proposing expanding the reach of the popular Unified Payments Interface (UPI) digital payments system by allowing credit to be offered via pre-approved bank lines."
Business Insider
"The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has introduced an interchange fee of up to 1.1% on UPI transactions done via prepaid payment instruments (PPI) from April 1.The charge will be applicable on payments of over ₹2,000, but it has caused confusion amongst users as to who will be charged for these transactions and which payment modes will be chargeable."
The Times of India
"National Payments Corporation of India has recently set the interchange rate at 1.1% for merchant transactions initiated using a prepaid payment instrument such as a Mobile Wallet on the Unified Payments Interface network. The change will take effect April 1."
Reuters
"Indian financial technology company Paytm Payments Services Ltd has received an extension from the country's banking regulator to apply for a payment aggregator licence and aims to reapply in about 15 days, the company said on Sunday. Paytm Payments Services, in the meantime, can continue with the online payment aggregation business for its existing partners, without taking on any new merchants, the company said in a notification to stock exchanges on Sunday."
Marketscreener
"IDFC FIRST Bank is set to be a part of RBI's pilot project to enable offline payments. This project will give access to digital payments even when there is no network. This unique digital payment solution was designed by Crunchfish for merchants and customers under the RBI's Regulatory Sandbox Program."
American Express
"With business travel across domestic and international markets showing a rebound post pandemic, majority of Indian businesses (67%) expect a rise in business travel in 2023 and 77% of businesses are expecting to increase their travel budget in 2023 as compared to 2022. These findings were revealed in the business travel and entertainment (T&E)[1] survey report titled ‘Revival of business travel: An India perspective’ commissioned by American Express, India with the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr)."
Coindesk
"India and the United Arab Emirates will jointly conduct pilot programs on central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, according to an announcement on Wednesday. The Reserve Bank of India and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates signed a memorandum of understanding in Abu Dhabi to explore the interoperability between the CBDCs of the two countries."
MediaNama
"The newly introduced AI-based fingerprint authentication mechanism for securing Aadhaar-based transactions by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is a measure to prevent cloning of Aadhaar-linked fingerprints, the UIDAI said on March 13, 2023, in a Right to Information (RTI) response to MediaNama. The RTI, filed on February 18, was primarily about financial crimes involving Aadhaar-Enabled Payment System (AePS) and the UIDAI provided no answers to queries specifically related to these much-discussed recurring frauds."
Reuters
"Indian companies are using the SWIFT global payment system to settle dollar payments with Russia, a top trade official said on Wednesday, even though many Russian banks are blocked from the network due to Western sanctions. The West blocked access to SWIFT for several Russian banks, including Sberbank and VTB, soon after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February last year to target Russian trade, making it harder for Russian companies to do business. SWIFT underpins financial transactions globally."
Biometric Update
"Bill Gates has visited MOSIP (Modular Open Source Identity Platform) in its hometown Bangalore for presentations on the project’s progress and plans, MOSIP has shared in a LinkedIn post. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been a backer of the free-to-use ID platform that avoids vendor lock-in."
The Hindu Businessline
Unified Payment Interface (UPI) has changed the face of payments in the country, and has become the epitome of digital payments worldwide. It has influenced Fednow, an instant payments system in US, and P27, a real-time and cross-border payments system in the Nordics. While the real-time payment transfer system was an instant hit, it created an entirely different challenge of market concentration for the government in India – the interface is dominated by PhonePe and Google’s GPay. PhonePe has nearly 50 per cent market share with recent funding and valuation as one of the largest fintechs in the country, followed by Google Pay with over 34 per cent, and Paytm has 10 per cent share, and these transactions’ value could reach 10 trillion rupees by 2026
Worldline
Worldline announced the launch of its Buland Bharat digital payments suite, which is designed specially keeping in mind the needs and wants of small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India. The Buland Bharat digital payments suite is in line with the Digital India initiative by the government of India. It will go a long way in extending a secure and seamless digital payment ecosystem to small and medium businesses (SMBs) from every nook and corner of the country.
Reuters
Walmart-backed PhonePe said on Thursday it raised $350 million from private equity firm General Atlantic at a $12 billion valuation, making it India's most valuable payments firm and giving it funds to expand into the lucrative lending space. A second tranche of investments from marquee global and Indian investors is expected to close next month, a PhonePe spokesperson said, declining to give further details.