Access to CPS for Non-Banks to Fuel Digital Payments’ Growth: PCI

The Payments Council of India (PCI) has welcomed the RBI's move to allow authorised non-bank payment system providers to participate in centralised payment systems (CPS). It said that it’s a step forward to create a financially-inclusive society and strengthen digital payment landscape.

CPS Welcomes RBI Move

In the first phase, authorised non-bank PSPs can participate in CPS as direct members. The industry has been looking forward to RBI instructions ever since it RBI announced the CPS access to the non-banking digital payments industry in the Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies.

Vishwas Patel, Chairman, PCI and Director, Infibeam Avenues Limited said, "we truly appreciate the central bank’s efforts in promoting the use of digital payments and welcome the access of RTGS and NEFT to the Prepaid Payment Instrument Issuers, Card Networks; and White Label ATM Operators. The industry will work towards implementation of the notification. This move definitely indicates a bright way forward for digital payments instruments in the country."

Mahendra Nerurkar, VP and CEO, Amazon Pay India and Co-Chair, PPI Committee, PCI, said, "we would like to express our sincere thanks to the central bank for allowing Prepaid Payment Instrument Issuers access to centralised payment systems. This will assist to strengthen digital payments and bring more innovation, as well as improve customer protection and efficiency."

The RBI has already made NEFT and RTGS systems available 24x7x365 from December 2019 and December 2020, respectively. The move will lower the overall risk in the payments ecosystem. Moreover, it will also allow digital payments to grow in India and adjust to the needs of the customers.

This also translates into many advantages to the non-banking payments industry. One, it reduces the cost of payments; two, it reduces their dependence on banks, which reduces the time it takes to complete a payment and so on.

Further, this move will also reduce risk of failure and delay in fund transfers. Since the non-bank entities will directly initiate and process the transactions. This extension of access will definitely help further increase the penetration of digital payments in the country.