National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) was incorporated in December 2008 and the Certificate of Commencement of Business was issued in April 2009. The company, which has been incorporated as a Section 25 company under The Companies Act 1956, is now under Section 8 of The Companies Act, 2013. The formation of NPCI is aimed to operate for the benefit of all the member banks and their customers.
NPCI would function as a hub in all electronic retail payment systems which is ever growing in terms of varieties of products, delivery channels, the number of service providers and diverse Technology solutions. NPCI is now certified for three standards – PCI-DSS (sensitive data security in payment systems), ISO27001 (information security) and ISO 22301 ( business continuity) apart from ISO 9001( Quality Management)
NPCI has successfully completed the major project of developing a domestic card payment network called- RuPay. RuPay card payment system symbolizes the capabilities of the banking industry in India to build a card payment network so that dependency on international card schemes is minimized. The RuPay card is now accepted at all the ATMs (1,60,000+), 95% of PoS terminals (9,45,000+) and most of the e-Com merchants (10,000+) in the country.
A variant of the card called ‘Kisan Card’ is now being issued by all the Public Sector banks in addition to the mainstream debit card which has been issued by 43 banks. A variant of Pre-paid RuPay card would shortly be launched by IRCTC. More than 150 Cooperative banks and the Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) in the country have also issued RuPay ATM card. More than 17 million cards are being issued by various banks, and it is growing at a rate of about 3 million per month.
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The NPCI symbol uses the acronym of the organization’s name. The letter forms are arranged to reflect solidity with progressiveness and dynamism. The use of the red dot and swirl make the entire image unique and memorable. The swirl also communicates worldwide presence. The green and red combination is reminiscent of the Indian National colors. It presents a fresh, individualistic and environmentally conscious message to the world.
The corporation service portfolio now and in the future include:
- National Financial Switch (NFS) which connects 166928 ATMs of 242 banks
- Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) provided to 62 member banks, with more than 6 crore MMIDs issued.
- National Automated Clearing House – has close to 400 banks as Live.
- Aadhaar Payments Bridge System (APBS) has more than 300 banks as Live.
- Cheque Truncation System (CTS) has fully migrated western & southern grid from MICR centres.
- Aadhaar-enabled payment system (AEPS)- has 26 member banks.
- RuPay – Domestic Card Scheme- has issued over 17 lakh cards and enabled over 9 lakh PoS terminals in the country.
There are ten core promoter banks (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). The Board consists of Balachandran M as the chairman, Nominee from Reserve Bank of India, Nominees from ten core promoter banks and A. P. Hota, managing director and chief executive officer, NPCI.
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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 for operating various retail payment systems in the country and granted Certificate of Authorisation for operation of National Financial Switch (NFS) ATM Network with effect from 15 October 2009.
NPCI has deputed its officials to IDRBT Hyderabad and NPCI has taken over NFS operations from 14 December 2009. Membership regulations and rules are being framed for enrolling all banks in the country as members so that when the nation-wide payment systems are launched, all would get included on a standardised platform.
A Technical Advisory Committee has also been constituted with two professors of IIT Bombay. N. L. Sarda is the chairman and G. Siva Kumar is the Co-Chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee. Members in this committee are drawn from banks at the level of Deputy general manager/ Assistant general manager.
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