National Payments Corporation of India Decoded

In Banking Awareness
June 2, 2016

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is an umbrella organization for all retail payments system in India. It was set up with the guidance and support of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA). The objective was to facilitate an affordable payment mechanism to benefit the common man across the country and help financial inclusion. It has successfully completed the development of a domestic card payment network called RuPay, reducing the dependency on international card schemes.

INLINE FACTS

NPCI was incorporated in December 2008 and the Certificate of Commencement of Business was issued in April 2009.
It was incorporated as a Section 25 company under Companies Act 1956 (now Section 8 of Companies Act 2013).
The aim is to create infrastructure of large dimension and operate on high volumes resulting in payment services at a fraction of the present cost structure.
NPCI has ten promoter banks namely, 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.
NPCI logos signify the speed at which the organization is achieving new milestones which adds to setting higher benchmarks to match global standards. The shades Blue, Saffron and Green represent the colours of the Indian flag that pay homage to the organization’s deep roots.

The RuPay card is accepted at all the ATMs (1,98,953+), PoS terminals (10,70,000+) and most of the eCom merchants (30,000+) in the country.
More than 300 Cooperative banks and the Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) in the country have also issued RuPay ATM cards.

BACKGROUND HISTORY

The NPCI was incorporated in December 2008 and the Certificate of Commencement of Business was issued in April 2009. The authorised capital has been pegged at ₹3 billion (US$45 million) and paid up capital is ₹600 million (US$8.9 million).
The Board for Regulation and Supervision of Payment and Settlement Systems (BPSS) at its meeting held on 24 September 2009 has approved in principle to issue authorisation to NPCI.
Before NPCI, there were many systems providing different services at different levels. So NPCI was proposed so as to consolidate and integrate all these systems and provide a uniform and standard business process for all retail payment systems in the country.

SERVICES PROVIDED BY NPCI

National Financial Switch (NFS) ATM Network: It connects 1,98,953 ATMs of 449 banks. The service came into effect from October 15, 2009
Cheque Clearing System
Immediate Payments Service (IMPS): The service is provided 24x7x365.
Automated Clearing House
Electronic Benefit Transfer
RuPay Card: It is a domestic card payment network to provide an alternative to international card schemes. As on end-October 2015 over 220 Million Indians own RuPay cards.
Unified Payments System: The service was launched on 11 April 2016. It is aimed at providing a single id to transfer the funds anywhere (reducing the use of IFSC codes).