The Reserve Bank had announced the theme for the Third Cohort under the Regulatory Sandbox (RS) as ‘MSME Lending’ vide Press Release dated December 16, 2020. It now announces opening of application window for the Third Cohort to eligible entities. 2. The application for the Third Cohort may be submitted from October 01, 2021 to November 14, 2021. A scanned copy of the application, together with enclosures (maximum size 10 MB), may be forwarded through email. (Yogesh D

In the First Cohort under the Regulatory Sandbox with ‘Retail Payments’ as its theme, six entities commenced testing of their products which was communicated vide Press Release dated November 17 and December 24, 2020. 2. The following six entities have completed the ‘Test Phase’. Sl. No. Name of the Sandbox Entity Description of the product (i) Nucleus Software Exports Ltd. (PaySe) PaySe is an offline digital cash product which proposes to help in digitisation of paym

The Reserve Bank had announced opening of the Second Cohort under Regulatory Sandbox vide Press release dated December 16, 2020 for Cross Border Payments. The Reserve Bank received 27 applications from 26 entities of which eight entities have been selected for the ‘Test Phase’. The entities, as per details below, shall commence testing of their products from the third week of September 2021. Sr. No. Sandbox Entity Description 1 Book My Forex Private Limited The produc

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has today announced the following enhancements to the extant framework on card tokenisation services: the device-based tokenisation framework advised vide circulars of January 2019 and August 2021 has been extended to Card-on-File Tokenisation (CoFT) services as well, and card issuers have been permitted to offer card tokenisation services as Token Service Providers (TSPs). The tokenisation of card data shall be done with explicit custo

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed monetary penalty of ₹3 crore (Rupees three crore only) on Transaction Analysts (India) Pvt. Ltd. for contravention of / non-compliance with certain provisions of the directions issued by RBI contained in the Master Direction on Issuance and Operation of PPIs in India dated October 11, 2017 (updated as on November 17, 2020) and Master Direction – Know Your Customer (KYC) Direction, 2016 dated February 25, 2016 (updated as on

The Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) Scheme was announced by the Reserve Bank on January 5, 2021. The objective of the scheme was to encourage deployment of Points of Sale (PoS) infrastructure (both physical and digital modes) in tier-3 to tier-6 centres and north eastern states. The Reserve Bank has now decided to include street vendors identified as part of the PM Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi Scheme) in tier-1 and tier-2 centres as b

The Reserve Bank had earlier announced construction of a composite Reserve Bank of India – Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) with March 2018 as base to capture the extent of digitisation of payments across the country. The index for March 2021 stands at 270.59 as against 207.84 for March 2020, announced while launching the index on January 1, 2021. The RBI-DPI index has demonstrated significant growth in the index representing the rapid adoption and deepening of digita

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has today imposed restrictions on Mastercard Asia / Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Mastercard) from on-boarding new domestic customers (debit, credit or prepaid) onto its card network from July 22, 2021. Notwithstanding lapse of considerable time and adequate opportunities being given, the entity has been found to be non-compliant with the directions on Storage of Payment System Data. This order will not impact existing customers of Mastercard. Mas

A technical upgrade of NEFT, targeted to enhance the performance and resilience, is scheduled after the close of business of May 22, 2021. Accordingly, NEFT service will not be available from 00:01 hrs to 14:00 hrs on Sunday, May 23, 2021. The RTGS system will continue to be operational as usual during this period. Similar technical upgrade for RTGS was completed on April 18, 2021. Member banks may inform their customers to plan their payment operations accordingly. N

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has, by order dated April 23, 2021, imposed restrictions on American Express Banking Corp. and Diners Club International Ltd. from on-boarding new domestic customers onto their card networks from May 1, 2021. These entities have been found non-compliant with the directions on Storage of Payment System Data. This order will not impact existing customers. American Express Banking Corp. and Diners Club International Ltd. are Payment System