NPCI would function as a hub in all electronic retail payment systems which is ever growing in terms of varieties of products, delivery channels, number of service providers and diverse Technology solutions.

NPCI has a mandate to create a domestic card scheme. The Brand name finalised for the same is RuPay. This scheme would be similar to domestic card schemes one of which is China UnionPay in China. China UnionPay (CUP) was a national agenda for a few years by mandating all domestic transactions to be routed through the national card system. Now China UnionPay cards are accepted in 26 countries. The card base is 1.8 billion. Bulk of the payments are made in China by CUP cards. Although it may not be possible to mandate such transaction flow in India, a domestic card is not a distant dream if all banks work in a co-operative framework. NPCI can reach the scale of China UnionPay by excelling in service quality and by placing the next generation products and services.

Vocalink in UK provides another benchmark for NPCI. Vocalink facilitates money transfer from any bank account to any other bank account in UK on a real time 24 x 7 basis. This implies that the experience of RTGS has been extended to retail payment segment. Now that more than 60,000 bank branches in the country are covered under Core Banking Solution, this is very much a feasible proposition in India and would be known as India MoneyLine.

NPCI would also benchmark against Bankserv in South Africa and KFTC in South Korea in terms of operational efficiency, reach across the country and range of products and services.