The National Payments Corp of India (NPCI) has received approval from Reserve Bank of India for a tie up with Chinese government-supported payment card network China UnionPay. As per the approval, China UnionPay’s cards will be accepted at all the ATMs and point of sale terminals in India through NPCI’s network.

This agreement will greatly benefit Chinese tourists and people working in India to use automated teller machines (ATMs) and point of sale (PoS) terminals in India to withdraw cash in the Indian currency. Other than that this move will also facilitate healthy competition among the global players such as the US-based MasterCard and Visa, which offer services in India but not in China.

Every year, more than 2 million tourists are visiting India from China. NPCI has a network of 1.1 million PoS terminals and 195,000 ATMs in India.

NPCI

NPCI’s main objective is to facilitate an affordable payment mechanism to benefit the common man across the country and help financial inclusion.

NPCI is planning to launch credit card in early 2016. NPCI has recently launched RuPay Platinum Debit Card to further its card payment network.

GK Questions

• What is the name of the domestic card payment network developed by NPCI? RuPay
• Who is the MD and CEO of NPCI? AP Hota
• NPCI was incorporated in ______? December 2008.