Nearly a year after opening up the process of enrolling new financial technologies into its regulatory sandbox, the Reserve Bank of India has selected six products, two of which have initiated testing.
After facing a short delay on account of the Covid-19 pandemic, two of the six selected entities— Jaipur-based Natural Support Consultancy Services Pvt. (eRupaya) and New Delhi’s Nucleus Software Exports Ltd. (PaySe)—began testing their fintech products on Nov. 16, the RBI said earlier this week. It didn’t disclose the other four products that are yet to begin testing.
Even as the broader theme was “retail payments”, the banking regulator has chosen to focus on offline payment solutions for the unserved and underserved segments of the population in picking products for testing. While smartphone penetration in the country is rising, practical difficulties such as internet connectivity continue to hurt the spread of digital payments in rural areas. Offline payments are one way of overcoming those.
Enabling offline mobile payments is a critical step towards digitalising transactions in parts of the country that continue to grapple with intermittent internet access, said Fali Hodiwalla, partner—financial services consulting at advisory firm EY.
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