Visa, Innoviti develop stored value debit card for offline payment

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 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 Reserve Bank of India has been urging banks to come up with solutions for offline digital transactions so that transactions can continue to take place with poor telecom infrastructure or during network breakdowns.