New Delhi: Internet connectivity is a major problem in India, especially in several rural and semi-urban areas. It acts as a stumbling block in mission Digital India.
A debit card, for instance, cannot often be used for offline transaction as connectivity is poor.
To solve this lacuna, global leader in digital payments Visa has partnered with Innoviti Payment Solutions, India’s largest provider of payment solutions to offline enterprise merchants, to drive a Proof of Concept (POC) for offline payments in India. The POC has been executed by Innoviti in Bengaluru in partnership with Yes Bank and Axis Bank.
The offline payments technology will go a long way in improving digital transactions in small towns, rural and remote areas as it will reduce dependency on internet for payments via chip-based Visa debit, credit and prepaid cards.
“India faces a major challenge in terms of last-mile internet connectivity. Due to these infrastructural limitations and the resultant inconvenience, there are gaps in adoption of digital payments across smaller towns and rural pockets of the country. This is where the offline payments technology initiative is expected to bridge these gaps and help the merchants and consumers in these pockets benefit immensely by adopting digital payments, especially for micro-payments,” Innoviti stated.
The chip in the new Visa debit card will have a stored value of daily spend limit of Rs 2,000 with a per transaction limit of Rs 200, as mandated by RBI. In case of insufficient balance, the transaction will be declined.
This is the first of a kind payment technology in India.
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