Introduction

The global payment card network industry is dominated by a few players such as Visa, MasterCard, who enjoy a dominant market share. However, since the launch and wide adoption of UnionPay cards in China, many other countries launched similar networks in their countries. Through reliable and secure digital payment network, card companies enable businesses and economies to thrive. Card networks are the intermediaries who facilitate payments between numerous card issuing and transaction originating financial institutions (FIs).

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced its intention to launch a domestic payment card network and helped to create the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), an organisation that launched the domestic payment cards called RuPay.  The important drivers were:

Indian banks had to bear high costs for affiliation with international card associations in the absence of a domestic price setter. In 2010, they paid more than $100 million to international network processors. The connection with international card associations results in the need for routing even domestic transactions, which account for 90 percent of the total, through a switch located outside the country.

The high costs of transaction settlement on international networks, uneven market pricing, and lack of competition are some of the key drivers being put forward by those promoting domestic processing of payment transactions. Then President, Hon'ble Pranab Mukherjee had dedicated to the nation RuPay, India’s own card payment network on 8th May, 2014 taking on global leaders like Visa and Mastercard.

Birth of RuPay

RuPay, a new card payment scheme launched by the NPCI, has been conceived to fulfil RBI’s vision to offer a domestic, open-loop, multilateral system which will allow all Indian banks and FIs in India to participate in electronic payments. ‘RuPay’, the word itself has a sense of nationality in it. ‘RuPay’ is the coinage of two terms Rupee and Payment. The RuPay Visual Identity is a modern and dynamic unit. The orange and green arrows indicate a nation on the move and a service that matches its pace. The colour blue stands for the feeling of tranquillity, which the people must get while owning a card of the brand ‘RuPay’. The bold and unique typeface grants solidity to the whole unit and symbolises a stable entity.

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