RuPay, a sweet deal for expats

RuPay’s foray into the Gulf market is turning out to be a sweet deal for expatriates with Prime Minister Narendra Modi promising to allow the Indian community “to transact at cheaper” rates. RuPay went live in Bahrain with Bahrain’s Electronic Network For Financial Transactions (BENEFIT) and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) signing a Memorandum of Understanding. 

NPCI is an umbrella organisation for all retail payments in India.  On Saturday, UAE became the first middle eastern country to initiate India’s indigenous equivalent of Mastercard or Visa. According to reports, expatriates in the UAE will have to pay only one-tenth of the transaction fees levied by payment networks there. RuPay went live there with Modi swiping his card to buy Indian sweets at a shop temporarily set up at Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. The sweets were later offered as ‘prasad’ at the Shreenathji Temple in Manama, the oldest temple in the region for which Modi has launched a US$2.2 million redevelopment project. 

“The RuPay card comes to UAE! PM @narendramodi makes a special purchase, which he would offer as Prasad at the Shreenathji Temple in Bahrain tomorrow,” the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) tweeted. “I am glad that you will be able to transact in Bahrain soon with RuPay card. Today there is an MoU signed for use of RuPay card,” the Prime Minister told thousands of Indians assembled at the Bahrain National Stadium here. 

“Our intention is to provide you with the facility to send money to your home in India through RuPay Card. Now you will be able to say that “Bahrain - Pay with RuPay,” he said. This will also allow the Indian community in Bahrain to transact at cheaper, he added.  In UAE, India’s NPCI signed the deal with UAE’s Mercury Payments services to establish a technology interface between payment platforms in India and the UAE.  According to Gulf News, Emira t e s NBD, First Abu Dhabi Bank and Bank of Baroda — will soon start issuing RuPay card in the UAE. 

Reports say as many as 21 major business groups — including LuLu, Petrochem Middle East, NMC Healthcare and Landmark — in the UAE have pledged to accept RuPay as a mode of payment. PTI reports that the NPCI in association with the Mercury Payments Services has made RuPay cards acceptable at 1,75,000 merchant locations and 5,000 ATM and cash access locations within the UAE.  Gulf News, quoting an Indian official, said, “Currency conversion charges will not be applicable as transactions are done within the Indian system and the data is also saved in India.

Additionally, RuPay provides big discount offers and attractive loyalty schemes.” Launched in 2012, RuPay is the first-of-its-kind domestic Debit and Credit Card payment network of India. The name, derived from the words ‘Rupee and ‘Payment’, emphasises that it is India’s very own initiative for Debit and Credit Card payments. 

Presently, RuPay has collaborated with almost 600 international, regional and local banks across the country. India has already launched the RuPay card in Singapore and Bhutan. Today, there are close to 500 million RuPay cards in circulation in India.