OBC launches RuPay cards with withdrawal limit of Rs 25,000

New Delhi: State-owned Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) on Saturday launched debit cards on the indigenously designed payment gateway RuPay.

The move is expected to help the bank reduce transaction costs.

"OBC is the 25th bank to join this system. The most important thing is cost effectiveness. With the launch of this card, I think the transaction fees will come down substantially," OBC Chairman and Managing Director S L Bansal said during the launch of the card here on Saturday.

RuPay is the domestic ATM/debit card payment system on the lines of international systems like Visa and Mastercard.

OBC launched RuPay ATM card and RuPay Kisan card that will work on India's own payment infrastructure to meet the needs of different sectors of the society.

"These two cards will be given free of cost to the customers to ensure its popularity and bring-in more volume into the electronic payment system," OBC Executive Director V Kannan said.

The daily cash limit on both the cards will be Rs 25,000 per day.

RuPay Payment network would help Indian banks to cut down on their high membership fee to international companies such as VISA, MasterCard and American Express.

For the international payment gateway banks have to pay USD 10,000 every quarter to these agencies irrespective of the transaction volume.

However, RuPay enabled card payment system will charge 60 paise per transaction from the bank, Kannan said.

"RuPay is a domestic branded card and the idea is to make card payment system cost effective. Cost and affordability are the primary reasons for the need of it," A P Hota, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) that governs RuPay system, said.

"We have decided to launch this RuPay card in rural and semi-urban area to start-with. Once the PoS system is put in place, we will be extending this issuance to urban and metropolitan regions also," Kannan said.

These cards will be acceptable across 102,051 ATMs of 66 RuPay member and 41 RuPay sub-member banks across India.

PTI