The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched an offline contactless payments feature for RuPay cardholders, it said in a press release on Wednesday. RuPay cardholders can now make offline payments at point-of-sale (PoS) devices using Near-Field-Communication (NFC) enabled cards in areas with limited network connectivity, it said. Over the last few months, there has been a push by the NPCI and the Reserve Bank of India to encourage digital payments in an offline mode, particularly due to network connectivity issues in large parts of the country. In August this year, the RBI issued guidelines to payment system operators allowing them to launch pilot programs for small value offline payments. Further, the RBI recently allowed two companies to conduct pilot tests for offline payments solutions under its regulatory sandbox, while the NPCI has partnered with companies like ToneTag and Gupshup to launch a feature-phone based payments solution that can be used offline. The NPCI has also launched a re-loadable wallet for offline contactless payments via RuPay cards, whereby customers can store money in the wallet to make regular retail payments. The feature which is currently enabled for the National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) will be made available for regular retail payments on a pilot basis, it said. The RuPay NCMC offline wallet can be used to make payments for transit services metros, bus tickets or cab fares, for instance, which reduces the need for cash and eases the convenience of daily travel. “We are delighted to unveil the new…
