NEW DELHI, India—India has taken another step forward in persuading its citizens to embrace cashless payment solutions.
The Indian government has launched BharatQR Code to enable people to pay for things they purchase without swiping their plastic cards. Instead, merchants can ask shoppers to scan a QR code and make payments directly from their bank account, Mashable reported.
The move is also a big blow to digital wallets in this country, according to analysts.
The penetration of payment terminal machines remains low in India, with many merchants complaining about the cost of the device and the high transaction fee. According to the government's own estimates, there are about 57.7 million merchants but only 1.5 million digital payment acceptance locations, Mashable noted.
With BharatQR Code, the government hopes to do away with card swipe terminals as merchants will be able to generate their own QR code that will be interoperable with all banks.
The government-backed National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has partnered with 14 major financial institutions, including Reserve Bank of India and ICICI Bank to support BharatQR. BharatQR Code also supports all the major payment terminals — NPCI-backed RuPay, as well as MasterCard, Visa and American Express, Mashable reported.