Visa complains to US govt about India backing for local rival RuPay

[Vinash]

Visa Inc has complained to the U.S. government that India's "informal and formal" promotion of domestic payments rival RuPay hurts the U.S. giant in a key market, memos seen by Reuters show.

In public Visa has downplayed concerns about the rise of RuPay, which has been supported by public lobbying from Prime Minister Narendra Modi that has included likening the use of local cards to national service.

But U.S. government memos show Visa raised concerns about a "level playing field" in India during an Aug. 9 meeting between U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai and company executives, including CEO Alfred Kelly.

Mastercard Inc has raised similar concerns privately with the USTR. Reuters reported in 2018 that the company had lodged a protest with the USTR that Modi was using nationalism to promote the local network.

"Visa remains concerned about India's informal and formal policies that appear to favour the business of National Payments Corporation of India" (NPCI), the non-profit that runs RuPay, "over other domestic and foreign electronic payments companies," said a USTR memo prepared for Tai ahead of the meeting.

Visa, USTR, Modi's office and the NPCI did not respond to requests for comment.

Modi has promoted homegrown RuPay for years, posing a challenge to Visa and Mastercard in the fast-growing payments market. RuPay accounted for 63% of India's 952 million debit and credit cards as of November 2020, according to the most recent regulatory data on the company, up from just 15% in 2017.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...ofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

 

[Covfefe]

Payment gateways have been one hell of a rent seeking businesses for these fellas. Only 5-6 of them owned almost all of the world's transaction fees. And which "domestic" player has payment gateway in India other than RuPay? Possibly that's why they used the term "electronic payments company". And NPCI literally revolutionized UPIs in India, otherwise we would have continued paying them for card based transactions

 

[Vinash]

Payment gateways have been one hell of a rent seeking businesses for these fellas. Only 5-6 of them owned almost all of the world's transaction fees. And which "domestic" player has payment gateway in India other than RuPay? Possibly that's why they used the term "electronic payments company". And NPCI literally revolutionized UPIs in India, otherwise we would have continued paying them for card based transactions

These guys literally had a stream of "free" money due to no competition. It's about time India stops this unnecessary financial bleeding. Imagine losing 2-5% to foreign companies on every single transaction? RuPay should infact venture into the world market more rapidly. Right now, RuPay has a presence in only around a dozen countries.

Provide the same services as VISA and Mastercard for a fraction of cost and eat into their marketshare.