Fintech giant Razorpay enables merchants to accept credit card payments via UPI

Razorpay, one of India's leading full-stack payments and banking platforms for businesses, announced today that the platform is ready to support the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for credit card transactions.

The development is part of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) latest innovation in the digital space.

With RuPay credit cards being enabled on UPI, the merchants can start accepting credit card payments on UPI with minimal changes to their existing setup, the company said. "This disruption is made possible in partnership with Axis bank, which shares Razorpay’s focus on catering to the ever-evolving needs of merchants and delivering greater convenience," it said.

Razorpay said that linking credit cards with UPI will ensure that customers will no longer have to carry their credit cards with them at all times for payments.

Approximately 250 million Indians use UPI for their day-to-day transactions, and nearly 50 million users have one or more credit cards. The financial regulator’s move is set to offer customers the best of both worlds - the seamless payment experience of UPI with the benefits of short-term credit and the rewards of cards.

Shashank Kumar, MD & Co-founder, Razorpay, said, "India is one of the very few countries which have been able to foster innovation through directional regulation. As the leading player in this ecosystem, we have always thrived on swiftly bringing innovative products to market that would translate opportunities into exponential impact for our merchants and the country."

"This decision undertaken by the NPCI and RBI is set to have positive implications for both consumers and merchants, where they can transact and accept payments via credit cards on UPI. For this enablement to bring in the impact, the readiness of any payment gateway infrastructure is essential. Under this context, Razorpay has taken the first step towards democratizing credit card transactions on UPI for our merchants," Shashank said.

According to the Reserve Bank of India’s data, the credit card industry in the country has grown steadily at the rate of 30% over the last three years. Despite this, the industry remains primarily underpenetrated with only 6% of Indians having access to a credit card.

On the other hand, UPI has recorded over 731 crore transactions in Oct 2022 alone being used by more than 40% of Indians. 

 “We are excited to partner with Razorpay to promptly facilitate acceptance of Credit Card payments through UPI on their large merchant base, supplementing NPCI’s goal of helping all RuPay Credit Card users," said Nalin Bansal, Chief of Corporate and Fintech Relationships and Key Initiatives at NPCI.

"Active involvement from a leading ecosystem partner like Razorpay will accelerate go-to-market as it will enable credit cardholders to make transactions through UPI, thereby eliminating the need to carry a physical card. This development is of vital importance to the ecosystem as we look to expand our suite of services whilst boosting India’s credit penetration," Nalin added.

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