RBI issues guidelines for fund to boost digital payment infra

MUMBAI : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday announced operational guidelines for the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) Scheme, aimed at encouraging deployment of more digital payment infrastructure in tier-3 to tier-6 centres.

The fund will be used to subsidise bank and non-banks for payment infrastructure deployment and would be contingent upon achieving specific targets.

The central bank has constituted an advisory council under the chairmanship of B P Kanungo, a deputy governor, to manage the fund. The PIDF will be operational for a period of three years from 1 January 2021 and may be extended for two more years depending upon the progress. At present, the fund has a corpus of ₹345 crore, of which ₹250 crore was contributed by RBI and ₹95 crore by the major authorised card networks in the country.