Current Trends in Indian Economy
First Payment Gateway to support Credit cards on UPI
- Razorpay becomes India’s First Payment Gateway to support credit cards on Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
- Razorpay in partnership with Axis Bank announced its readiness to support Credit Card Transactions on UPI.
- Earlier, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the linking of RuPay credit cards to BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) UPI app.
- BHIM is a payment app that allows simple, easy and quick transactions through UPI.
- Benefits: No need to carry credit cards for payments, strengthen digital payments and boost India’s credit penetration.
- Currently, only 6% Indians have access to credit cards.
- In a similar development, RBI will introduce ‘single-block-and-multiple debits’ feature on UPI platform.
- Under this, customers will create payment mandates against a merchant by blocking funds in their bank account for specific purposes which can be debited, whenever needed.
- Benefits: Improve ease of making payments for online shopping, build trust among consumers etc.
- RBI also announced an expansion of Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) to include all payments and collections.
- BBPS is a one-stop ecosystem for all recurring bills with multiple features (see image).
About UPI
- UPI is a real-time payment system, launched in 2016 by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). It links multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application
- NPCI is an initiative of RBI and Indian Banks Association under Payment and Settlement Systems Act (2007). It is an umbrella organization for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India.
One District One Product Scheme
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- The Ministry of Commerce and Industry informed that ODOP initiative is operationally merged with ‘Districts as Exports Hub (DEH)’ initiative.
- ODOP initiative is aimed at fostering balanced regional development across all districts of the country.
- It focuses on the district as a unit for converting into a manufacturing and export hub by identifying products with export potential in the district.
- ODOP was launched by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries.
- Under the ‘Districts as Export Hubs Initiative’, products and services (including GI products, agricultural clusters, toy clusters etc.) with export potential have been identified in all districts of the country in consultation with the stakeholders including the States/UTs.
Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) Scheme
- The RoDTEP scheme has been extended to chemicals, pharma, iron & steel. The RoDTEP scheme is under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
- It refunds exporters the embedded duties/taxes that are not rebated under other schemes. This includes VAT on fuel used in transportation, mandi tax, duty and electricity used during manufacturing.
- The RoDTEP scheme replaces the earlier Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS) which violated provisions of WTO by giving export subsidies for a wide range of goods.
