Govt allows issuance of RuPay forex, usable at ATMs, POS machines, online sites

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said that the government has decided to allow issuance and acceptance of RuPay cards internationally. Governor Das said that this has been decided following the increasing global acceptance of RuPay debit and credit cards issued by Indian banks through bilateral arrangements with international partners and co-badging arrangements with international card schemes. 

“In order to expand payment options for Indians travelling abroad, it has been decided to allow issuance of RuPay prepaid forex cards by banks in India for use at ATMs, PoS machines and online merchants overseas. Further, RuPay debit, credit, and prepaid cards will be enabled for issuance in foreign jurisdictions, which can be used internationally, including in India,” said Governor Das, further adding that these measures will expand the reach and acceptance of RuPay cards globally. 

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WHAT IS RUPAY

RuPay is a payment network, whose cards are usable at ATMs, POS devices and e-commerce websites across the country. The name has been derived from the two words, ‘Rupee’ and ‘payment’. 

At present, over 1,100 banks including from the public, private, regional and co-operative sectors issue RuPay cards. State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citibank and HSBC are its 10 core promoters.

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In the last seven years, RuPay has launched various card variants to cater to different needs of the consumers.  It offers Classic, Platinum and Select variants for the affluent customers, apart from government scheme cards. 

RuPay also has a bunch of innovative products such as RuPay Contactless that offers wallet-based payment mechanisms and is enabled across all use cases. 

RuPay also allows tokenisation to allow cards to be tokenised on smartwatches, wearables, IoT-enabled devices, and allowing them to conduct card payments. 

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