BharatQR, the world’s first interoperable and lost acceptance solution, has been launched. The solution, developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), MasterCard and Visa is intended to be a secure, interoperable tool for the country’s transition into a less cash society. R. Gandhi, deputy governor, Reserve Bank of India, launching the BharatQR, said this is a momentous occasion for the payments industry in India and this innovative interoperable solution, which is easy to scale, provide a seamless customer experience, and above all safe and secure, is essential to accelerating India’s transition to a less–cash society. BharatQR was devised based on the direction set by the Reserve Bank of India in September 2016 and its Payments Vision 2018, which outlines innovation, interoperability, and security as the three pillars to facilitate India’s transition to a less-cash society. BharatQR has three key benefits – consumers will not need to scan different QR codes at the same merchant provided by the different payment networks, merchants will only need to display one QR code at the storefront or through the acquiring bank’s mobile application and the underlying specification for BharatQR can be implemented in other countries to deliver a globally interoperable solution. Importantly, the implementation of the BharatQR standards will be seamless and only happen at the backend, meaning merchants do not need to change their existing QR codes. NPCI, MasterCard and Visa developed BharatQR with provisions for three additional fields: bank account and IFS code, Unified Payments Interface, and Aadhaar. Several leading banks are already operationally ready to deploy BharatQR, including Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Citi Union Bank, DCB, Karur Vysya Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, RBL Bank, State Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Vijaya Bank and Yes Bank.
