NPCI raises paid-up capital from Rs 100 cr to Rs 137 cr

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has increased its paid-up capital from Rs 100 crore to Rs 137 crore by broad-basing its stakeholder base of various public and private sector banks.
"This is no longer a speculation. The paid-up capital has gone up from Rs 100 crore to Rs 137 crore by broad-basing our stakeholder base of our current set of private and public banks," NPCI Chairman M Balachandran told PTI on the sidelines of the Unified Payment Interface Hackathon organised by NPCI here.
Balachandran also said the RuPay version of credit cards will be rolled either in June or July this year.

"By June-July we will roll out RuPay version of credit cards," he said.
Earlier, Balachandran said the NPCI had an authorised paid-up capital of Rs 100 crore, shared by 10 banks - six public sector banks, two foreign banks and two private banks.
At present, Balachandran said NPCI has 46 additional shareholding entities and is held by 56 different banks.

"We have increased our capital base. Originally, we had ten banks. We have added another 46 banks into our fold. So, for now NPCI is held by 56 different banks.
These banks include all public sector banks, foreign banks, private banks, cooperative banks and RRBs," he said.

He said the expansion step was taken after Reserve Bank of India had asked NPCI to increase its share capital.
In spite of NPCI not being a listed entity and not declaring dividend, the enthusiasm shown by people to become shareholders in it has been tremendous, Balachandran said.
"Ours is a non-profit company, and in spite of not being a listed entity and we don't declare dividends, the enthusiasm shown by people to become shareholders in NPCI has been tremendous," he said.
On what kind of capital NPCI aims to raise in the second
phase, Balachandran said, "I really cannot say. It is a long-term process. However, we have an idea but do not have the numbers right now," Balachandran said.

Asked when the three new versions of RuPay - Mudra, international and credit cards - will be rolled out, Balachandran said, "Two foreign card schemes - JCB (Japan Credit Bureau) and China UnionPay - will be enabled in India. From September, these cards will be accepted in India."
"However, NPCI has not worked out the timeline yet for rolling out Indian cards which will be accepted in those countries we have tied up with (JCB and China UnionPay)," he said.
Earlier speaking at the Hackathon event, NPCI Managing Director and CEO A P Hota said UPI is the next generation payment system and it has the potential to revolutionise retail payments in India.

"A key feature of Unified Payment Interface (UPI) is that it would provide interoperable and instant payments driven over the mobile platform," he said.
Besides that, a customer will be able to make payments by providing just a single identifier like Aadhaar number or a virtual address, Hota said.
UPI will leverage trends such as increasing smartphone adoption, deepening penetration of mobile data, Indian language interfaces etc, Hota said.
The NPCI organised UPI Hackathon in association with Indian Software Product Industry Round Table which provided a platform for start-ups and developers community to accelerate innovations in payments arena.
The event was launched by NPCI Advisor Nandan Nilekani along with Balachandran and NPCI Managing Director and CEO A P Hota, besides key iSPIRT officials.

"NPCI would support banks and solution providers to develop solutions based on the Application Programming Interface (APIs)made available by us," Hota said.
"UPI will empower users to perform both push and pull transactions seamlessly which will transform the way customers will make payments in the coming months," he said.