New project aims to enable growth of e-commerce and digital transactions in the UAE
The UAE and India have entered into a strategic agreement for the implementation of a domestic card initiative in the Emirates.
As per the agreement, NPCI International Payments Limited – a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Payments Corporation of India – has joined forces with Al Etihad Payments – a subsidiary of the Central Bank of the UAE.
The entities will work together to build, enact and operationalise the UAE’s national domestic card programme. It will be based on India’s RuPay cards, which are issued through the entire banking spectrum, including public, private and small banks.
“The partnership agreement between NPCI and CBUAE for the development of a national card scheme for the UAE modelled on India’s RuPay card is another milestone in our economic engagement,” state-owned news agency Wam quoted Piyush Goyal, India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food, Public Distribution and Textiles, as saying.
“The India-UAE partnership will go a long way and would be exemplary for the world.”
The new initiative aims to enable the growth of e-commerce and digital transactions in the UAE, bolster financial inclusion, support the country’s digitisation agenda, increase alternate payment options, reduce the cost of payments, and enhance the UAE’s competitiveness and position as a global payments leader.
The partnership aligns “perfectly with NIPL’s mission to offer its knowledge and expertise to assist other countries in establishing their own cost-efficient, and secure payment systems”, India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a statement on Thursday.
The domestic card programme solution is based on the principles of speed to market, innovation, digitisation and strategic independence, it added. Provided by NIPL, the solution consists of RuPay stack and value-added services such as fraud monitoring and analytics.
RuPay is a global card payment network with wide acceptance at shops, ATMs and online platforms and have debit, credit and prepaid options. More than 750 million RuPay cards are currently in circulation and they make up more than 60 per cent of the total cards issued in India.
NIPL will also assist AEP in formulating the operating regulations for their domestic card initiative.
Mr Goyal also participated in the 11th meeting of the UAE-India high-level joint task force on investments in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, Wam reported. The meeting was co-led by Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed, managing director of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and Mr Goyal.
The joint task force was established in 2013 to promote trade, investment and economic ties between India and the UAE.
The meeting reviewed the progress made on the implementation of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between the two countries, which came into force in May last year. In the first 12 months of the Cepa, bilateral non-oil trade reached $50.5 billion, representing a growth of 5.8 per cent annually.
The joint task force delegations also discussed the status of negotiations for the India-UAE bilateral investment treaty, Wam reported.
Source: The National
