Indian hyperlocal fintech start-up PayNearby has collaborated with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Yes Bank to launch a retailer shopping card.
The offering, called PayNearby Shopping Card, will enable the fintech’s retailer partners to avail a range of digital services. The services will include monthly recharges, utility payments, e-learning, gaming and e-commerce among others.
The RuPay powered card is available through more than one million PayNearby retail touch points across the country.
The launch of the card is expected to encourage digital transactions in India where digital penetration is significantly lower compared to Western countries.
PayNearby founder, managing director and CEO Anand Kumar Bajaj said: “The launch of PayNearby shopping card powered by RuPay will act as a catalyst in our cash digitisation efforts and help us uplift local communities by enabling access to a lot of digital services, which were earlier limited to 10% of the country’s population who had access to digital money.”
According to local news sources, the retailers can use the shopping card by completing the KYC process.
The card will support a maximum wallet balance of INR100,000 ($1355.96) at any point. The user can transact up to INR500,000 monthly and INR2.5m annually with the card.
Recently, the State Bank of India (SBI) launched a contactless debit card in partnership with NPCI and Japanese credit card firm JCB International. The card will also support contact transactions abroad.
