Visa expresses dissatisfaction to US govt over India’s backing for 'homegrown' RuPay

New Delhi, Nov 29: In a significant development, Visa Inc (V.N) has expressed dissatisfaction to the US government that India's indigenous product - RuPay- is severely affecting in losing its worth in the market.

 

 

In public, Visa has not raised any concerns about the rise of RuPay, which has been supported by public lobbying from PM Narendra Modi that has included likening the use of local cards to national service. However, according to the U.S. government memos show, Visa stated about a "level playing field" in India during a meeting in August between US Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai and company executives, including CEO Alfred Kelly.

 

 

Earlier, Mastercard Inc (MA.N), too had raised similar concerns privately with the USTR. In 2018, the company had lodged a protest with the USTR that Modi was using nationalism to promote the local network. "Visa remains concerned about India's informal and formal policies that appear to favour the business of National Payments Corporation of India" (NPCI), the non-profit that runs RuPay, "over other domestic and foreign electronic payments companies," said a USTR memo prepared for Tai ahead of the meeting.

 

 

PM Modi has been promoting homegrown RuPay for years, posing a challenge to Visa and Mastercard (MA.N) in the fast-growing payments market. RuPay accounted for 63% of India's 952 million debit and credit cards as of November 2020, according to the most recent regulatory data on the company, up from just 15% in 2017.

 

 

Publicly, Kelly said in May that for years there was "a lot of concern" that the likes of RuPay could be "potentially problematic" for Visa, but he stressed that his company remained India's market leader. "That's going to be something we're going to continually deal with and have dealt with for years. So there's nothing new there," he told an industry event.