Credit and debit cards including RuPay Cards issued by the public sector banks

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) collects information on the number of debit and credit cards outstanding by the Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs). The credit and debit cards outstanding for the last three years is placed below:

(in millions)

 The bank-wise information of Scheduled Commercial Banks on the number of credit and debit card outstanding for the last three years is available on RBI website at https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/ATMView.aspx.

 RBI collects bank wise information on transactions done through credit and debit cards at ATM and POS on a monthly basis. However, bifurcation of data on the basis of card network operators is not available with RBI.

National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has submitted a proposal for approval for launch of Rupay Credit Cards to Department of Payment & Settlement Systems (DPSS), RBI. The same is under process.

The authorised card networks such as RuPay, Visa, MasterCard, Amex and Diners levy types of charges on the member banks for the services that are provided by them. One such charge is the network fees / switching fees that is paid by the acquiring and issuing banks to the respective card network for each transaction. These charges are decided by the network and its members. The Reserve Bank has not issued any regulations in this regard.

 RBI has authorised five card networks in the country for issuance of debit and/or credit cards through the franchisee banks. The Reserve Bank does not prescribe to banks the network with which they have to affiliate to issue the cards.

The Government had prescribed the issuance of RuPay cards to each of the account holders who have opened the accounts under the Prime Minister Jan DhanYojana.

This was stated by Shri Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.