RuPay, an Indian domestic card scheme to integrate and consolidate various payments, was launched by NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) on 26 March 2012. It was created due to the desire of Reserve Bank of India, to have a domestic, multilateral system of payments in India. It was launched with the purpose to curb the transaction costs, which were too high because of the dominance of foreign card schemes like MasterCard and Visa.
An amalgamation of two words, RuPay stands for Rupee and Payment, and its logo has an allusion to India's tricolour flag. To make the RuPay card scheme gain international acceptance on Discover’s global payment network, the NPCI partnered with Discover Financial Services (DFS).
Presently, RuPay debit cards are issued by more than 1,100 banks that include Public and Public Sector Banks, Regional Rural, and Cooperative Banks. The top ten banks that promote these cards are Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citibank N. A., and HSBC.
