HDFC Bank, Precision Bio to test applications under RBI's sandbox scheme

HDFC Bank and Precision Biometric India have been selected by the Reserve Bank for testing their 'on tap' retail payments applications under the regulatory sandbox scheme, the central bank said on Monday.

Regulatory sandbox (RS) refers to live testing of new products or services in a controlled/test regulatory environment for which regulators may permit certain relaxations for the limited purpose of the testing.

The regulatory sandbox allows the regulator, innovators, financial service providers and customers to conduct field tests to collect evidence on the benefits and risks of new products and systems.

The RBI announced the opening of the 'On Tap' application facility for the theme 'Retail Payments' under the regulatory sandbox in October last year.

The product 'Offline Retail Payments' by HDFC Bank (in partnership with Crunchfish AB) provides the capability for customers and merchants to pay and receive payments in offline mode, the RBI said in a release.

The solution aims to boost the adoption of digital payments in areas of no or low network by enabling transactions without the need to have a network connection, it added.

Precision Biometric India has come out with 'InnaIT Key Solution for Banking'. It offers a solution to enable biometric tokens, which can be used for secure password-less authentication and Additional Factor Authentication (AFA), instead of an OTP, for logging into internet/ mobile banking.

The solution combines Public key infrastructure (PKI) and Biometric to enhance security and user experience in the digital payments space, the RBI said.

In another statement, the RBI announced that the fifth cohort under the regulatory sandbox will be theme neutral.

"Innovative products/services/ technologies cutting across various functions in RBI's regulatory domain would be eligible to apply," it said, adding the application window for the same will be communicated in due course.