RBI to geo-tag payments system for wider access to digital transactions

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The Reserve Bank of India on October 8 announced geo-tagging of payments system to enhance the payment acceptance infrastructure.

The geo-tagging technology will provide location information on an ongoing basis and can be used in targeting areas that lag behind in payments acceptance infrastructure.

The RBI will propose a framework for geo-tagging by capturing geographical coordinates - latitude and longitude of physical payment acceptance infrastructure, like Point of Sale (PoS) terminals and Quick Response (QR) codes, used by merchants.

The RBI had set-up a Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) to encourage deployment and strengthening of payments acceptance infrastructure and create additional touchpoints.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das in his bi-monthly monetary policy review on October 8 said the geo-tagging framework would complement the PIDF framework by better deployment of acceptance infrastructure and wider access to digital payments.

To ensure a balanced spread of acceptance infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country, it is essential to ascertain location information of existing payment acceptance infrastructure, he said.