After FM pitch for promoting RuPay, Visa says competition offers innovation, choice to customers

Global payments major Visa on Wednesday responded to the Indian government’s push for adoption of RuPay cards, saying presence of all kinds of players fosters innovation and offers customers a choice.

A day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked banks to “only promote” RuPay cards, Visa’s country manager for India and South Asia T R Ramachandran said that digital payments penetration is very low in India at only 18 per cent of overall personal consumption expenditure.

“We all have our roles to play,” Ramachandran, whose company along with peer Mastercard competes with the Rupay alternative offered by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), said.

Talking to reporters, he said that India is a large country and unlike the western countries, where it is a zero-sum game, where somebody has to lose for somebody to win.