You can soon use debit cards without any network – Times of India

You can soon use debit cards without any network - Times of India

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MUMBAI: Debit cardholders may soon be able to request their bank for a Visa card that allows them to store up to Rs 2,000 in the chip itself, enabling transactions to take place without connectivity.
A proof of concept (PoC) for the stored value card for offline payments has already been established by Visa in partnership with payment solutions firm Innoviti. The PoC has been executed in partnership with Yes Bank and Axis Bank. Stored value cards are different from prepaid cards where authorisation takes place on the network cloud.
The chip in this new Visa debit card will hold a stored value of a daily spend limit of Rs 2,000 and have a per-transaction limit of Rs 200 — the limits mandated by the RBI currently. If the balance is insufficient, the transaction will be declined, making this proposition conducive for cardholders and merchants. Merchants also stand to gain revenue from reduced friction and risk of payment failures. Visa’s solution is the first of its kind and equipped to enter the Indian market.
The RBI has been urging banks to come up with solutions for offline digital transactions so that these can continue to take place with poor telecom infrastructure or during network breakdowns. Digital payments are hugely dependent on mobile networks and an outage could result in major transaction failures in a region. With the deep penetration that debit cards have across India, offline payments using Visa cards is expected to facilitate the transition of payments from cash to digital.
“Lack of internet connectivity has limited the democratisation of digital payment acceptance in the country, as all existing payment technologies need real-time connectivity for authentication and authorisation. Offline payments are a fast, reliable, and low-cost way of solving this problem that can change the way payments happen,” said Rajeev Agrawal, MD & CEO of Innoviti Payment Solutions, India.



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