RuPay extends reach to IRCTC, LIC and online retailers

RuPay payment gateway has roped in Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation or (IRCTC), insurance major Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India and some of the country's largest online merchants, including flipkart, Snapdeal, bookmyshow and Homeshop18, allowing holders of the payment card to book train tickets on irctc.co.in, make online payments for LIC premium, shop on flipkart.com, snapdeal.com and homeshop18.com and book movie tickets on bookmyshow.com, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said today.

NPCI said, with this, RuPay acceptance has grown to over 15,000 online merchants with a customer base of 30 million RuPay cards that are acceptable at all ATMs and 9.8 lakh PoS in the country.

Also, the country's largest bank - State Bank of India (SBI) - has started accepting RuPay cards on its payment gateway. RuPay e-Commerce service was launched in June 2013 with an additional anti-phishing feature for security checks.

''Team-SBI is quite upbeat about the development. State Bank Payment Gateway (PG) facilitating every month, around 1.3 crore Card-Not-Present (CNP) transactions.

Addition of RuPay platform will give a further boost to e-commerce transactions, NPCI stated.

''Flipkart is one of our active merchants. Acceptance of RuPay card for online transactions by Flipkart will add to the transaction flow from their site to our NetBanking and PG'', said B Sriram, managing director and general manager (Net Banking) of SBI.

NPCI has been offering a very unique e-commerce solution– PaySecure; through which a RuPay cardholder uses ATM PIN to make an online transaction, which is easy and quick. RuPay PaySecure was adjudged the most secure solution by the Data Security council of India for its security features for online transactions. The user experience is also enhanced as now cardholders have to use picture password and use only mouse clicks to complete the payment.

''Today, 30 million RuPay cards have already been issued in the country. RuPay cards today are enabled at all ATMs across the country, 9.8 Lakhs POS terminals and over 15000 online merchants. RuPay card holders can now shop on top e-tailers in the country, pay their bills as well as book travel tickets online. It is our vision to touch every Indian with at least one payment mode of NPCI by 2020''

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is the umbrella organisation for all retail payment systems in India, set up with the support and guidance from the Reserve Bank of India and Indian Banks' Association.

RuPay, an indigenous card scheme of NPCI, is playing a vital role in the 'PM Jan Dhan Yojana' by providing debit card to every account holder. The government is aiming to open 7.5 crore accounts by 26 January 2015, which clearly means the card base of RuPay will touch close to 50 million.