The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) recent announcement regarding the intended linkage of credit cards to UPI should be a great payment alternative. Customers can profit from both UPI and credit cards.
The Indian payments ecosystem has been fast changing, particularly since the epidemic and widespread digital usage across businesses. UPI has emerged as a clear winner in the digital payments industry, recently clocking the processing of Rs. 10.4 lakh crore in May 2022, owing to perks such as the convenience of transactions and a fee-free model.
However, other competitors in the payments business, such as debit and credit cards, digital wallets, Buy Now Pay Later, and so on, have coexisted with their own set of benefits to provide to their own sets of consumers.
RBI, UPI, and Credit Card
While UPI payments have proved popular for small-ticket purchases, credit card purchases are typically preferred for larger purchases. Even though, unlike UPI payments, they account for a lower fraction of digital transactions, their issuance increased 16.3% year over year by February 2022, according to RBI data.
UPI payments are free and need single-click identification, whereas credit cards give a brief interest-free credit period and reward points, implying that customers can utilize UPI for large ticket products with the proposed service. Users can pick from a variety of payment methods, including debit and credit cards linked to UPI.
This connection will eliminate several annoyances in the consumer payment experience, including the need to carry credit cards and swipe them at point-of-sale machines/enter card information online, as well as allowing for more secure purchases.
As a result of the change, customers would have a more convenient payment experience, broadening the breadth of digital transactions and merchant partnerships in India.
Adding Country’s Payment System
The RBI intends to launch this option alongside RuPay, the country’s payment system. However, it is unclear how the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) for future UPI payments made with credit cards would be implemented.
Although banks’ co-branded credit card agreements with merchants in sectors such as fashion, petroleum, travel, and others already provide value-added services to their clients, this move will enhance such services by providing a seamless payment experience.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has set a target of $1 billion in UPI payments each day over the next two to three years, using systems such as UPI, Bharat Bill Pay, and RuPay.
In the merchant accepted payments area, credit cards still have a considerable market share, accounting for 26% of volume and 53% of value. By linking UPI with credit cards, which already leads the digital payments industry, new regions would be able to adopt UPI much more quickly and easily. It will also expand into many more embedded payments shortly, proving to be a significant step toward a cashless economy.
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