India Today
India’s conglomerate Reliance Industries has partnered with Facebook, Google and fintech-player Infibeam to set up a national digital payment network. ET on Saturday reported that Reliance and Infibeam were in the advanced stages of submitting their proposal to RBI.
Last year, India’s central bank invited companies to forge new umbrella entities (NUEs) to create a payments network. This would rival the system operated by the National Payments Council of India (NPCI).
2008 set-up, NPCI is a not-for-profit company, which as of March 2019 counted dozens of banks as its shareholders. State Bank of India, Citibank and HSBC are few shareholders. It processes billions of dollars in payments daily via services that include inter-bank fund transfers, ATM transactions and digital payments.
Digital payments in India could rise to $135.2 billion in 2023, according to an Assocham-PWC India study in 2019.
Facebook and Google are already partnered with Reliance and own stakes in Jio Platforms, the unit which houses Reliance’s music, movie apps and telecoms venture.
The RBI extended the deadline for all parties to submit NUE applications until March 31 from February 26.