Boost for contactless transactions: SBI Payments, NPCI come up with this new feature

New Delhi: SBI Payments and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) have joined hands to launch RuPay SoftPoS that will enable merchants to make contactless transactions of up to Rs 5,000 through their smartphones.

The solution has the capability to transform NFC (near field communication) enabled smartphones into merchant Point-of-Sale (PoS) terminals for retailers, SBI and NPCI said in a joint release on March 5.

Merchants will now be able to accept contactless payments of up to Rs 5,000 through a simple tap and pay mechanism on their smartphones.

RuPay SoftPoS will provide cost-effective acceptance infrastructure to retailers at a nominal cost, it said, adding this will be able to proliferate digital payment acceptance among millions of underserved Indian MSMEs.

Smartphones of merchants will act as a payment terminal once they download a supported app, said the release. The RuPay SoftPoS solution benefits the merchants and customers alike as it creates a smart and user-friendly acceptance infrastructure for merchants; whereas encourages the customers to make secure, contactless payments, said the release.

One can use this facility on NCMC (National Common Mobility Card) cards and RuPay tokenized card on mobile/wearable.

SBI Payments is working closely with NPCI to support the government’s Digital India initiative enabling small and medium merchants in semi urban and rural centres, said Giri Kumar Nair, MD & CEO SBI Payments.

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) COO Praveena Rai said the facility is aimed at creating an innovative payment solution for Indian MSMEs which forms the backbone of the economy.

“It is our endeavour to ensure that merchants from various geographies of the nation are onboarded into the ecosystem in order to deepen the penetration of digital acceptance infrastructure in the country,” Rai said.