To develop a wide range and usage of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) proposed on Wednesday that credit cards be linked to the instant real-time payment system.
“To start with Rupay credit cards will be enabled with this facility. This arrangement is expected to provide more avenues and convenience to the customers in making payments through UPI platform. This facility would be available after the required system development is complete,” RBI stated.
Necessary instructions will be issued to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) separately, it added.
Currently, UPI facilitates transactions by linking savings or current accounts through users’ debit cards.
UPI has become the most inclusive mode of payment in India, with over 26 crore unique users and 5 crore merchants onboarded on the platform, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said.
The interoperability of prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) has also facilitated access of PPIs to the UPI payment system for undertaking transactions, the RBI chief further stated.
The central bank also proposed to enhance the e-mandate limit on cards for recurring payments from ₹ 5,000 to ₹ 15,000.
Meanwhile, RBI raised the key interest rate by 50 basis points (bps) in a bid to cool persistently high inflation.
The monetary policy committee (MPC) increased the key lending rate, also known as the repo rate, by 50 basis points to 4.90 percent.
The rates for the Standing Deposit Facility (SDF) and the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) were raised by the same amount, to 4.65 percent and 5.15 percent, respectively.