Rupay Card

• India signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia on October 29, 2019, to launch the Rupay card in the country. An MoU was signed to formalize the same between the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Saudi Payments.
• The Prime Ministers of India and Bhutan had jointly launched Phase-I of the project during the State Visit of the Prime Minister to Bhutan in August 2019.
• The implementation of Phase-I of RuPay cards in Bhutan has enabled visitors from India to access ATMs and Point of Sale (PoS) terminals across Bhutan.
• This would make Saudi Arabia the third Gulf nation to initiate India’s digital payment system.
• The move is expected to benefit the Indian population living in the nation and also the various Haj and Umrah pilgrims. The Rupay card has already been launched by India in four countries– UAE, Bahrain, Singapore, and Bhutan.
• Phase-II will now allow Bhutanese cardholders to access the RuPay network in India. 
• India and Bhutan share a special partnership, anchored in mutual understanding and respect, reinforced by a shared cultural heritage and strong people to people links.
• The RuPay card is the first-of-its-kind Indian domestic debit and credit card payment network. It is accepted at ATMs, POS devices as well as various e-commerce websites.
• The payments card was launched in 2012 by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). It was created to fulfill the RBI’s vision of having a domestic, open, and multilateral system of payments. It was formally dedicated to India by the then Indian President Pranab Mukherjee in May 2014.
• Initially, the card was tentatively referred to as India Pay
• The NPCI created the card as an alternative to Mastercard and Visa cards.
• In India, almost 90 percent of the credit and debit card transactions are domestic. Hence, RBI in its vision document of 2009-12 had highlighted that there is a need for such a payment system, as the Indian banks have to bear the high cost of affiliation with international The Rupay card enables electronic payment at all Indian banks and financial institutions.
• The cost per transaction is low with Rupay card in comparison to the foreign card schemes. The payment system is also highly secure and protects users against cyberhacks.nal card association schemes like Visa and Mastercard.