09-01-2021 | 13:26 PM
Payment Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF)
Context
On January 5, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stated that the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) has been operationalised to create 30 lakh new touch points every year for the digital payments in Tier-3 to Tier-6 centres.
Key Highlights
In June 2020, RBI had announced the creation of a Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF).
The objective behind creating this fund is to subsidise deployment of payment acceptance infrastructure in Tier-3 to Tier-6 centres, with special focus on the north-eastern states.
An Advisory Council (AC), under the chairmanship of RBI deputy governor BP Kanungo, has been constituted for managing the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF).
PIDF will be operational for a period of three years from January 01, 2021, and maybe will be extended for two more years, depending upon the progress.
The PIDF has a corpus of Rs 345 crore.
Rs 250 crore have been contributed by the RBI.
Rs 95 crore by the major authorised card networks in the country.
The target of Payments Infrastructure Development Fund is to increase payments acceptance infrastructure by adding 30 lakh touch points every year – 10 lakhs physical and 20 lakhs digital payment acceptance devices.
Multiple payment acceptance devices/infrastructure supporting underlying card payments, such as physical PoS, mPoS (mobile PoS), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), and QR code-based payments, will be the types of acceptance devices to be covered under the scheme.
