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Showing posts with label non-cash Payments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non-cash Payments. Show all posts

Friday, 17 December 2021

08:43

Digital Payment Promotions in Bank will get Incentives From Government

 Digital Payment Promotions in Bank will get Incentives From Government

Cabinet approves an incentive scheme for promotion of RuPay Debit Cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions (P2M)

Financial outlay for one year is Rs.1,300 crore

With this Digital Modes of Payment will become accessible to unbanked and marginalised populations outside the formal banking and financial system

Posted On: 15 DEC 2021 4:04PM by PIB Delhi

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, today has approved an incentive scheme to promote RuPayDebit cards and low-value [uptoRs. 2,000) BHIM-UPI transactions (Person-to-Merchant (P2M)] in the country.                

Under the scheme, the acquiring banks will be incentivised by the Government, by way of paying percentage of value of transactions (P2M) done through RuPay Debit cards and low-value BHIM-UPI modes of payments, at an estimated financial outlay of Rs.1,300 crore for a period of one year w.e.f. April 01, 2021.

This scheme will facilitate acquiring Banks in building robust digital payment ecosystem and promoting RuPay Debit card and BHIM-UPI digital transactions, across all sectors and segments of the population and further deepening of digital payments in the country.

It will also help in making accessible digital modes of payments to unbanked and marginalized populations, who are outside of the formal banking and financial system.

India today is one of the most efficient payments markets in the world.  These developments have been the outcome of the initiatives of the initiatives of the Government of India and innovation by various players in the digital payment ecosystem.   The scheme will further spur research and development and innovation in fintech space, and will help the Government in further deepening of digital payments in various part of countries.

Background:

The scheme has been formulated in compliance with the Budget announcements (FY 2021-22) by the Governmentto give further boost to digital transactions in the count

Source:PIBNEWS

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Friday, 25 May 2018

21:07

PayPal Now Fully Integrates With Google Accounts

PayPal Now Fully Integrates With Google Accounts
Add PayPal to one Google service and the entire Google ecosystem can use it to pay for stuff.
Some would argue making payments even more seamless online is a bad thing because it's just so easy to buy all the things. But having to login to a payment service every time you click the purchase button is a hassle, so PayPal is making it easier for anyone who has a Google account.
PayPal already enjoys a relationship with Google, allowing users to pay using their PayPal account through Google Pay in stores, in apps, and online. But that partnership is now being extended to cover the entire Google ecosystem for anyone in the US.

 More Details:Pcmag

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Friday, 31 March 2017

08:31

Truecaller hears the sound of money in digital payment push

Truecaller hears the sound of money in digital payment push

Truecaller has tried to make mobile communication more secure in spite of its tryst with privacy experts. As they scaled more, India became one of their key markets. In an interaction with ETtech's Aritra Sarkhel, Alan Mamedi, CEO of Truecaller, discusses new partnerships, privacy issues and net neutrality. Edited Excerpts: 

ET: How has the India centres contributed to your growth? 
AM: We are now operating from Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. We have built our sales team, marketing team, partnership team, and now our engineering team is not only focusing on core products, but also on some India-specific integration into our product. We aim to grow the team fairly big this year. 


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06:51

Mega draw on 14th April -Digital Payments a Mass Movement

Mega draw on 14th April -Digital Payments a Mass Movement 

90 Days of Digi Dhan Mela: Towards Making Digital Payments a Mass Movement 

More than 14 lakh consumers and 77,000 merchants rewarded with Rs. 226 crore for embracing Digital Payments.Mega draw on 14th April

Public response to embrace Digital Payments is on a roll giving a push to make India a less-cash economy and NITI Aayog’s move to incentivize digital transactions by the people has paid dividends. 14 lakh people and 77,000 merchants have been rewarded since the launch of the two incentive schemes for Digital Payments – Lucky Grahak Yojana and DigiDhan Vyapar Yojana – on 25th December 2016. 
A sum of Rs. 226,45,40,000 (Rs. 176,95,40,000 to consumers and Rs. 49,50,00,000 to merchants) has already been disbursed so far under the two incentive schemes. The winners have been from various walks of life cutting across the barriers of age, sex and economic status. 
27 year old Devinder is a mechanic from Azamgarh village in Bihar who won Rs. 1 lakh under Lucky Grahak Yojana. Being the eldest among six siblings in a family of 12, he has to make a lot of transactions, which he now realizes is very simple if done digitally. Earlier he was using his brother’s bank account for his funds, but will soon open his own account. 
22 years old Sunil Vishwas Chauhan is a young farmer from Pachwad village in Maharashtra. He earns his living by selling milk and farm harvest in the local market. “I am glad that digital payments have reached me. Earlier all the money was embezzled by the middleman but now all funds go directly into my account and I receive alerts too,” says a relieved Sunil. 
40 years old Nahid opened her store just a few months back and installed all provisions for paying digitally at her shop. She says, “80% of my transactions are through digital modes. This solves my chutta problems and I think is safer than using cash.” She says that she and her 6 employees encourage customers to pay digitally as well. 
As part of the Government initiative in popularizing Digital Payments, DigiDhan Melas are being organized in 100 cities over a period of 100 days. As on 30th March (90th day) the Melas have been held in 26 States and 7 Union Territories. Over 5000 financial institutions have reached 15 lakh citizens through the Melas and at least 16,000 government and private institutions have been declared cashless. The 100 days of the DigiDhan Melas will end with the Mega Draw on April 14th. Melas are planned for Gangtok, Imphal, Haridwar, Nellore among others for the remaining 10 days. 
Since demonetization, there has been a phenomenal 584 per cent increase (0.3 to 4.5 million) in transactions made through the UPI. In this same period, payments using Adhaar have also seen an unprecedented jump of 1352 per cent (0.7 to 2.7 million). Also, the BHIM App, the UPI payment App launched by the Prime Minister on 30th December 2016, has been downloaded a record 18 million times since its launch. Besides there has been an increase of nearly 13 percent in the number of PoS machines sold since October 2016 indicating that more number of merchants across the country are willingly accepting digital payments. Today around 8 billion transactions take place annually through digital payment methods. The Government is planning to increase this to 25 billion transactions in the current year to bring an end to the shadow economy by reducing black money flowing into the system. 

Background: 

NITI Aayog launched two schemes on December 25, 2016 - Lucky Grahak Yojana (LGY) for consumers and Digi-DhanVyaparYojana (DVY) for merchants to incentivize them and promote digital payments. The two schemes shall remain open till April 14, 2017. There are 15,000 daily winners qualifying for total prize money of Rs. 1.5 crore every day. In addition to this there are over 14,000 weekly winners qualifying for total prize money of over Rs. 8.3 crore every week. Customers and merchants using RuPay Card, BHIM / UPI (Bharat Interface for Money / Unified Payments Interface), USSD based *99# service and Aadhaar Enabled Payment Service (AePS) are eligible for wining daily and weekly lucky draw prizes. 

Source:PIBNEWS


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Friday, 24 March 2017

16:01

South Indian Bank introduces Aadhar-based payment app

South Indian Bank introduces Aadhar-based payment app
KOCHI, MARCH 23:  
To promote cashless digital transactions, South Indian Bank has introduced Aadhar-based payment in its UPI mobile application- SIB M-Pay.
Unified Payment Interface enables all bank account holders to send and receive money from their Smartphone without entering the bank account information. Even non-customers of South Indian Bank can link any of their bank account in this mobile application. Currently, the fund transfer is possible only if the Virtual Address (UPI ID) of the beneficiary is known to the user. With the latest addition in SIB M-Pay, the fund transfers can be done by just entering the Aadhar number of the beneficiary. The amount will be credited directly to the beneficiary’s Aadhar linked bank account. SIB M-Pay app is currently available in Android Playstore.
Aadhar based payment in South Indian Bank's SIB M-Pay will be a major step in offering simple and efficient payment methods, as the country moves towards a 'Cashless Society' and Aadhar ID plays a key role in Digital India initiatives, said V G Mathew, MD & CEO of the bank.

Source:The Hindu
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Thursday, 9 March 2017

14:08

Paytm to charge 2 percentage fee on loading wallet via credit card

Paytm to charge 2 percentage fee on loading wallet via credit card
"We will put 2% fee (inclusive of taxes) only on adding money to wallet using credit cards while adding money using any other payment option remains free," Paytm said in its statement.
New Delhi, Mar 9: E-commerce application Paytm on Wednesday announced it will now levy a 2 percent charge for adding money into the wallet using credit cards. The 2 per cent fee, inclusive of taxes, would be charged whenever the wallet would be loaded through the user’s credit card. The decision is expected to impact a large number of Paytm users. Paytm will provide an equivalent amount of cashback for using credit card to add money to the wallet. Paytm users can add money to their wallets through other modes such as netbanking and debit cards without any extra cost.
“To avoid this misuse, we are making some changes in our terms. There will be no fee when you shop on Paytm or pay for any utilities using your Credit Card or any other payment option but to avoid the misuse highlighted above, we will put 2% fee (inclusive of taxes) only on adding money to wallet using credit cards while adding money using any other payment option remains free,” Paytm said.
“However, this 2% fee charges on credit card would be reversed in the form of a discount coupon for same amount which will be issued within 24 hours of adding money effectively giving you this fee back. This hopefully keeps unintended misuse of our platform away and as a consumer you still enjoy our services at no extra cost,” the statement further read.
The company also announced a slew of other changes as follows:
At Paytm we allow multiple payment options when you buy any product or pay for any utilities. We offer you to pay using Credit Card, Debit Card & Net Banking. Now, we are also adding 2 new payment options — UPI & IMPS. All these payment options are also available when you add money to your wallet. Every day millions of our customers use various methods to pay for products/services or add money to wallet.
As you are aware, in the month of November we launched a new payment platform for small merchants at 0% fee. Millions of merchants are accepting Paytm at their shops/establishments. They prefer to take money to their bank accounts and as a promise to democratizing payments, we made transfer to bank fee at 0%. This was extended to all our users as many shopkeepers/merchants also used their personal Paytm accounts to accept payments at their Shops.
This 0% transfer to bank fee left an opportunity to misuse this great service meant for our valuable customers. We saw a disturbing trend when many users started funding their Paytm wallet with their credit cards and transferring it to the bank all for free. They were not only getting free loyalty points which effectively is free cash but also getting access to free credit.
Incidentally, Paytm pays fee to card networks or banks whenever you use any payment instrument like any other online commerce company. Paytm pays a hefty charges when you use your credit card to card networks & issuing banks. If user simply adds money and takes to bank, we lose money. Our revenue model requires users to spend money within our network and we make money from the margins available to us on various products/services we offer.
We understand many of us use credit cards for consolidating all our monthly payments and using it to get a credit period for buying a product/service but this disturbing trend of using credit cards to rotate cash affects our ability to serve our valuable customers.
Some financially savvy users (surprisingly many of them employees of national financial institutions) exploited this model to rotate money. This may surprise normal users like most of us but for a savvy user it meant freebies at Paytm’s cost.
Paytm grew its user base in an unprecedented manner following the demonetisation drive carried out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Due to unavailability of cash, people downloaded the e-commerce application for cashless transactions. Within 10 days following the demonetisation drive, Paytm recorded a total of 7 million transactions.

Source:India.com
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Wednesday, 8 March 2017

07:11

Cash transactions: PNB not to levy charges for now

Cash transactions: PNB not to levy charges for now


To strengthen digital infrastructure
With the government asking SBI and other lenders to reconsider levying charges on cash transactions and ATM withdrawals above a certain limit, public sector lender PNB has adopted wait-and-watch policy. At the same time, the bank has said, it is strengthening its digital infrastructure and plans to launch digital bank within bank.
“Some of the banks have increased charges and fee on various services, but at the same time there is a request from the government to reconsider the decision. We don’t have any plan to introduce charges and fees on services as of now. However, I must say in order to move to digital channel, there is a cost attached to it,” said Usha Ananthasubramanian, MD & CEO, Punjab National Bank. She was in Panchkula today to distribute sewing machines to the SC women beneficiaries who were trained by Rural Self Employment Training Institute, Panchkula.
The government yesterday asked the SBI to reconsider its decision to levy penalty on non-maintenance of minimum balance. The bank has announced imposing a penalty ranging from Rs 20 to Rs 100 on non-maintenance of Minimum Average Balance (MAB) in savings bank accounts from April 1. Some private banks such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank have already started charging a minimum amount of Rs 150 per transaction for cash deposits and withdrawals beyond four free transactions in a month.
On being asked about digital infrastructure the bank is planning to develop, she said, “Brick and mortar branch model can’t be eliminated. To promote digital adoption, we are planning to launch digital bank within bank. We are working on the modalities and it is likely to take a year.”
After the demonetisation, the bank has received deposits worth Rs 93,000 crore. She said out of this, Rs 14,000 crore was deposited in loan accounts and Rs 200 crore to settle NPA accounts.
When asked about the reasons for low credit offtake, she said, “There are three main reasons behind it. First, the economy is not picking up as anticipated. Second, no new projects are coming up and thirdly bond market is getting stronger. However, we will continue to focus on agriculture, MSE and retail sector which is perennial cluster to boost credit offtake.”
She said the bank has identified assets worth Rs 1,800 crore which will be sold by the month-end to recover bad loans.



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Monday, 6 March 2017

21:29

70% want charges imposed on cash transactions to be removed: Survey

70% want charges imposed on cash transactions to be removed: Survey 

NEW DELHI: The recent changes made by private banks around charges being imposed on cash transaction have been met with opposition from consumers, with 70 per cent saying that these levies should be removed, a survey said. 

While banks are posing this move as another step towards making India a cashless economy, consumers are calling it a bad decision, according to survey conducted by LocalCircles. 

Around 70 per cent respondents of the 11,081 citizens voted on this poll want charges imposed by private banks on cash dealings to be removed, while 14 per cent said they will be fine with such levies once cashless transaction cost reduces. 

Asked about the latest charges imposed by private banks on cash transactions, 56 per cent said that they did not support this move and want the RBI to make the banks withdraw these levies immediately, 26 per cent said these charges don't matter as four free transactions were enough for them, and 4 per cent said that they were anyways using cashless operations. 

The survey noted that the charges on cash transactions is likely to prompt people to withdraw more than their requirements in one go and may actually result in higher magnitude of withdrawals and increased volume of cash transactions.

Consumers are also concerned with the cost of digital transactions and many of them have reported that merchants are still charging 2 per cent additional for debit, credit or wallet transactions. 

In a separate LocalCircles survey, consumers had indicated that debit card charges must be brought to zero while credit card and wallet charges must be capped at 0.5 per cent. 

A submission has been made by LocalCircles to the Department of Consumer Affairs, requesting them to take the matter with Reserve Bank of India and Ministry of Finance, LocalCircles said. 




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Saturday, 4 March 2017

06:27

Irregular Transactions by storing biometrics, criminal complaint against Axis Bank

Irregular Transactions by storing biometrics, criminal complaint against Axis Bank

Even Aadhaar sceptics would do well to keep in mind that, while a criminal complaint has been filed against Axis Bank, Suvidhaa Infoserve and eMudhra for allegedly storing biometrics and using them in an unauthorised manner, it was UIDAI that discovered the irregular transactions and reported them to the Delhi Police’s cyber cell and, pending a probe, all transaction requests from these organisations have been put on hold. If the UIDAI system is able to detect fraud, as the banks did when they found millions of debit/credit cards had been compromised due to a faulty ‘switch’ in a payments gateway some months ago in India, presumably that would mean it was working well.
Under normal circumstances, as a safety feature, every time a transaction is made like withdrawing funds from a bank and UIDAI replies to an authentication request, an SMS/email alert is sent to the subscriber.
So, why didn’t UIDAI send out alerts this time around when, going by a report in The Times of India, one individual performed 397 transactions, many of which were based on biometrics that were ‘stored’ locally and bunched during one week in January? Is this an example of Aadhaar being open to misuse since banks, etc, can store your biometrics and use them to illegally authorise transactions later? There have also been reports of one website publishing Aadhaar data of 500,000 minors—this, of course, is a list of names and matching Aadhaar numbers, but does not have actual biometrics—and of white-hat hackers generating iris scans from high-resolution photographs and even the possibility of data being compromised since Aadhaar registrations/verifications are typically done by several private firms.
First, as UIDAI officials point out, since the individual doing the transactions was using his own Aadhaar number, the alerts went to him—to that extent, the system’s first fail-safe worked. Had the stored biometrics belonged to someone else, say a reader of this newspaper, she would have got the SMS/email alerts and would have escalated matters. Two, since the authentication request, and the reply, are encrypted at a 2048-bit level—normal encryption levels are 128 or 256—UIDAI officials argue this makes the system very safe from hacking. But what of cases where the biometrics are stolen, or generated from high-resolution photographs, and then stored locally? Since security has to be an evolving feature, designed to beat threats as they occur or before they do, UIDAI plans to introduce the concept of ‘registered devices’.



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Sunday, 22 January 2017

12:18

Digitisation to ensure taxes are paid, says Paytm CEO

Digitisation to ensure taxes are paid, says Paytm CEO

Vijay Shekhar Sharma said digitisation would eventually kickstart a process where people would be asked to pay taxes.

Observing that India is a country with "corruption at mass level", Paytm chief Vijay Shekhar Sharma on Thursday said digitisation would eventually kickstart a process where the money trail would ensure that people would be asked to pay tax on the money they have earned.

"India is an amazing country where there are 1.2 billion people but only five million have ever paid a tax of at least one rupee. This is like corruption at mass level.

"We are a God-fearing country but when it comes to government, people say that money is ours. Digitisation starts a process where there would be a trail and people would be asked that you have made money and there is a tax to be paid," he said.

Speaking at a session on corruption and how his business model can help address this problem, the chief of the payment services provider said, "Let me give a little bit of context about India and I believe it is going to be the case for most developing economies.

"When new businesses are being established, there is generally a significant amount of discretion that may happen whether at the level of government, bureaucrats or someone".

This may happen at the policy level or at the part of whom you are picking, that is the starting point in developing countries and even if there is a free market or so, he added.

"India has a layered corruption problem thereon an extreme low level. If you have to meet a bureaucrat you have to give money to peon.

"Even if you have an appointment, he won't tell you that this person is sitting inside. Money has to be given and it is an obligation," Sharma said.

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Sunday, 18 December 2016

07:03

Digital and Cashless Economy : A New Way of Life after demonetization

Digital and Cashless Economy : A New Way of Life after demonetization


Pay Digital and Win Prizes! As India moves towards a digital and cashless economy, the Government announced on 15th December, 2016 two schemes Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana to give cash awards to consumers and merchants who utilize digital payment instruments for personal consumption expenditures. The prizes range from Rs 1000 to Rs 1 crore and the transactions permitted are from Rs 50 to Rs 3000 to keep the focus on the common man. The schemes will not only give a boost to cashless transactions, but will particularly bring the poor, lower middle class and small businesses into the digital payment fold, and new way of life.

The poorest of poor will be eligible for rewards by using USSD, (the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) System that is applicable to ordinary GSM mobile phones. People in village and rural areas can participate in this scheme through Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS). The scheme will become operational with the first draw on 25th December, 2016 (as a Christmas gift to the nation) leading up to a Mega Draw on Babasaheb Ambedkar Jayanti on 14th April 2017.

The Lucky Grahak Yojana for Consumers provides a daily reward of Rs 1000 to be given to 15,000 lucky consumers for a period of 100 days; and weekly prizes of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10,000 and Rs. 5000 for Consumers who use the alternate modes of digital Payments. This will include all forms of transactions viz. UPI (Unified Payment Interface), USSD, AEPS and RuPay Cards, but will for the time being exclude transactions through Private Credit Cards and Digital Wallets. The Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana for Merchants provides Prizes for Merchantsfor all digital transactions conducted at Merchant Establishments and weekly prizes of Rs. 50,000, Rs 5,000 and Rs. 2,500.

There will be a Mega Draw on 14th of April – Ambedkar Jayanti. This will give three Mega Prizes for consumers worth Rs 1 crore, Rs 50 lakh, Rs 25 lakh for digital transactions between 8th November, 2016 and 13th April, 2017 to be announced on 14th April, 2017. For merchants too, there will be three Mega Prizes worth Rs 50 lakhs, Rs 25 lakh, Rs 12 lakh for digital transactions from 8thNovember, 2016 to 13th April, 2017 to be announced on 14th April, 2017.

The National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), a not for profit company, which has the mandate to guide India towards a cashless society, is the implementing agency for the schemes. The NPCI has been directed to ensure a technical and security audit of the same to ensure that the technical integrity of the process is maintained. The Government shall incur an estimated expenditure of Rs 340 crores on the first phase of the scheme (up to 14th April, 2017).

The Centre has approved a slew of initiatives in February 2016 to encourage digital payments and a transition to less-cash economy in a strategic manner. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had highlighted these measures in his Man Ki Baat address in May 2016. Urging people to adopt cashless transactions, he said “If we learn and adapt ourselves to use cashless transactions, then we will not require notes. Under-hand dealings will stop; the influence of black money will be reduced. So I appeal to my countrymen, that we should at least make a beginning. Once we start, we will move ahead with great ease. Twenty years ago who would have thought that so many mobiles would be in our hands. Slowly we cultivated a habit and now we can’t do without those. Maybe this cashless society assumes a similar form. But the sooner this happens, the better it will be.”

Towards this end, the Government had launched a major drive for financial inclusion in terms of opening Jan Dhan accounts, giving a statutory basis for Aadhaar, implementation of Directs Benefits Transfer, introduction of RuPay Cards and Voluntary Disclosure Scheme for unaccounted money. Demonetization of 500 and 1000 Rs. notes on 8th November was another important milestone in this endeavour. Following demonetization, there has been a spurt in the digital payments across the country and both the volume and amount of money transacted through digital methods saw seen manifold increase since 9th November.

Yet, as on date, nearly 95 per cent of India’s personal consumption expenditure transactions are cash-based giving rise to a  very large informal economy, limiting the ability of State to levy and raise taxes. The daily Ru-Pay Cards transactions in the country have risen from 3.85 lakh on 8th November to 16 lakh on 7 December; the e-Wallets transactions have increased from 17 lakhs to 63 lakhs; the UPI transactions from 3721 to 48238; the USSD from 97 to 1263 and PoS (Point of Sale) transactions from 50.2 lakh to 98.1 lakh.

To further accelerate the surge in digital transactions, the Government announced on 8th December an attractive package to promote the use of cashless payments through various concessions like a discount at the rate of 0.75 per cent of the sale price to consumers on purchase of petrol or diesel, if payment is made through digital means. To expand the digital payment infrastructure in rural areas, the Central Government through NABARD decided to extend financial support to eligible banks for deployment of two PoS devices each in one Lakh villages with population of less than 10,000.  These PoS machines are intended to be deployed at primary cooperative societies, milk societies and agricultural input dealers to facilitate agri-related transactions through digital means and serve 75 crore population.

No service tax will be charged on digital transaction charges for transactions upto Rs.2000 per transaction. Railway through its sub urban railway network shall provide incentive by way of discount upto 0.5% to customers for monthly or seasonal tickets from January 1, 2017, if payment is made through digital means. Government has waived service tax charged while making payments through credit card, debit card, charge card or any other payment card; limiting the waiver to payments up to Rs. 2,000 in a single transaction

On 6th December, the Government, as part of the plan to expand the digital payments eco-system and facilitate the move towards cashless transactions, decided that an additional one million new PoS terminals should be installed by 31st March 2017. The Ministry of Labour & Employment and States’ Administration organized 2,73,919 camps to open 24.54 lakh bank accounts for unorganized workers.

Recommending a medium term strategy to promote the growth of digital payments, the Committee on Digital Payments constituted by the Ministry of Finance on 9th December submitted its Final Report to the Finance Minister and wanted the benefits to cover the financially and socially excluded groups.

Explaining the Government policy before the Finance Ministry’s Parliamentary Consultative Committee meet on 15th December, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that digital transactions were a parallel mechanism, not a substitute, for cash transactions and cashless economy was actually a less cash economy, as no economy could be fully cashless. The Finance Minister said that the Government was trying to encourage digitization as much as possible because an excessive cash economy had its own social and economic costs and consequences. The Government incentives to people had evoked a positive response to shift to digital mode of payment. Cyber security measures, he said, were being taken by the banks under RBI supervision.

*Deepak Razdan is a senior journalist and presently Editorial Consultant with The Statesman, New Delhi.

Source:PIBNEWS 


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Saturday, 17 December 2016

07:33

Cash shortage to end by mid-January: Amitabh Kant

Cash shortage to end by mid-January: Amitabh Kant

Cash shortages following the demonetisation of high value currency notes will end by mid- January, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant today said.
Disruption in the economy was inevitable after this step, taken as India aspires to have become a $10 trillion economy, said a statement by industry body Ficci, quoting Kant.
He heads the high-level committee set up the government to identify all possible modes of digital payments across sectors as it pushes on with its drive towards a cashless economy.
"The committee is well on its way towards establishing and monitoring an implementation framework with strict timelines to ensure that nearly 80 per cent of the transactions in India move to the digital-only platform," Kant said.
According to the statement, he emphasised that for sustaining a 7.5 per cent growth, digitisation is important as India cannot afford to have a parallel economy generated by high level of cash transaction.
India is the only economy in the world with 1 billion biometric authentications and 1 billion mobile phones, Kant said, adding that it has the digitisation infrastructure to leverage the JAM trinity -- Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile.
Noting that Aadhaar-enabled payments was the biggest disruption in India, he said nearly 30 crore people who are without mobile connections can use Aadhaar and thumb impression or Iris connection for digital payments.
In the next 6-7 months every smartphone user would be able to make Aadhaar based payment using a device based on inter-operating system, Kant said, pointed out that as India moves towards digitisation transaction costs would come down.
Highlighting various incentive schemes taken by the government to promote digital payments such as 'Lucky Grahak Yojana' and 'Digi Dhan Vyapari Yojna', the NITI Aayog CEO assured merchant-traders that in their move towards digitisation there would be no harassment by tax official by way of scrutiny of the previous years of books of accounts.
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Sunday, 7 August 2016

22:29

ICICI Bank Eyes 30 Lakh Transactions Via E-Toll Plazas By March

ICICI Bank Eyes 30 Lakh Transactions Via E-Toll Plazas By March

New Delhi: ICICI Bank is aiming to facilitate 30 lakh transactions through its interoperable electronic toll collection facility on national highways by March 2017.

Electronic toll collection (ETC) enables vehicles to pay highway tolls electronically without stopping at toll plazas.

The country's largest private sector lender, also the first bank to have rolled out the facility, is also planning to issue 4 lakh tags to motorists to allow them a hassle-free passage through toll plazas on the national highways.

"ICICI Bank aims to issue 4 lakh ETC tags and record three million transactions by March 2017. A vehicle with the 'FASTag' can use the dedicated lanes on either side of the toll plaza to avoid long queues in the cash lanes of the toll plazas," its managing director and chief executive officer Chanda Kochhar said.

ETC tags enhance convenience for motorists to avoid congestion at toll booths as drivers don't have to stop and pay the fee, saving their time.

Keeping in view its benefits, this technology will play a crucial role in the growth of cashless payments in India, Ms Kochhar said.

Currently, there are 343 ICICI Bank enabled locations across major national highways that cover about 90 per cent of the tolled national highways network.

Till date, ICICI Bank has issued over 30,000 FASTags which are in use. It began the service first in the country on the Mumbai-Vadodara corridor of NH-8 in 2013.

For making an electronic payment at toll booths, a prepaid radio frequency identification device (RFID) tag known as FASTag is affixed on the windscreen of a vehicle.

As a vehicle crosses a toll plaza, the information written on the FASTag is captured by a reader installed at the toll plaza.

The information is then passed to the bank to debit the motorist's tag prepaid account created at the central clearing house set-up by the bank. Then the toll amount is deducted and transferred to the concessionaire's account electronically.

Customers can recharge their TAG account by making payment through various ways including net banking.

NHAI also offers 10 per cent cashback to the customers for payment of toll through FASTag.

"We are closely working with Road Transport & Highways Ministry, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and Indian Highways Management Company Ltd to cover more highways under ETC in the near future," Ms Kochhar said.

Facilitating more and more payment through electronic mode and thus move towards a less-cash society is the Reserve Bank of India's Vision-2018 agenda.

It is aimed at making payment systems in India safe, secure, authorised, efficient and accessible.

Source:NDTV
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Thursday, 4 August 2016

22:53

New anti-fraud payment technologies coming to Russia

New anti-fraud payment technologies coming to Russia

Visa and MasterCard, in cooperation with the National System of Payment Cards (NSPK), will introduce to Russia a new anti-fraud technology that will allow consumers to safely use Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay.

Visa and MasterCard, together with the National System of Payment Cards (NSPK), plan to launch tokenization technology that will allow consumers to make purchases with Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay. A ''token'' is a unique digital identifier that replaces a client’s bank or credit card number.

Visa's chief executive officer in Russia, Ekaterina Petelina, told Vedomosti daily business newspaper that Visa and NSPK are working on launching a contactless payment technology this autumn that allows payments with mobile devices. MasterCard also plans to bring Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay to the Russian market.

“Tokenization technology is one of today's most important security developments because it provides the safest way of non-cash payments,” MasterCard representatives told RBTH.

With tokenization the payment terminal can scan a person's token from his/her mobile device and then pass it to an acquiring bank as a part of an authorization request. Visa said on its website that, ``tokens are secure because they can be device specific, or retail specific. A unique token is created for every device from a single account. For example, a token created for contactless use cannot be used online.''

“This is a very effective system to combat fraud because you don't need to secure your account information against exposure,'' Petelina told Vedomosti. ``Instead, you simply make such information useless to criminals. This is a completely different way of providing security.''

Visa and MasterCard first introduced tokenization technology in the U.S. in 2014, and have actively expanded it to other countries. According to MasterCard, their digital enablement services (MDES) are working in 18 European countries as of April. 

Even more innovations are coming to the realm of Russian digital commerce. 

“Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, plans to offer client identification via video image processing by 2018,'' said Yaroslav Loginov, founder of the crypto-currency system, LibreMoney. ``You won’t have to bring a card or phone with you. It will be enough to look at the camera and just speak a confirmation word or phrase.''

Source:RBTH.com

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