After RuPay, Visa set to roll out Indian government’s National Common Mobility Card

Global payments platform Visa on Monday announced it had launched specifications to support the roll out of the National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) by the government. NCMC, also known as ‘One Nation, One Card’, is an interoperable transport card that can be used for payments across all transit segments including metro, bus, suburban railways, toll, parking, as well as for retail payments.

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The NCMC was launched in March this year by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with homegrown payment network RuPay, which is operated by the National Payments Corporation of India, as its first partner.

In line with the guidelines laid down by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Visa NCMC cards will allow the contactless feature to pay for offline usage at transit venues. The card will allow holders to store their transit passes on the card, will provide multiple ways to top-up the offline balance on the card, and it can be accepted at participating public transport operators across the country.

Speaking on the development, TR Ramachandran, Visa Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, said,

“With the transit sector expected to expand with numerous upcoming metro and smart city projects, NCMC contactless cards is expected to trigger rapid adoption of digital payments across transit use cases. Besides being cost effective vis-à-vis cash, it will also help improve the efficiency and scale of public transit systems in the country.”

With this development, Visa plans to work closely with the government and its banks to ensure early rollout and acceptance of Visa NCMC cards.

Across the world, Visa contactless cards also support next generation account-based ticketing (ABT) models that have been adopted by leading metros. In the ABT model, consumers can easily ride with their existing Visa contactless card, allowing for a seamless payment experience.

In December last year, Visa had said it had issued over 20 million contactless cards in the country.

Bankers told YourStory, that local wallet usage is also in the roadmap of NCMC, so digital wallets might also move to contactless. Further, contactless transactions take 10-15 milliseconds to execute, making this form of payment more seamless for the customer.

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