PhonePe tokenizes 14 million debit and credit cards prior to RBI's deadline
2 min read . Updated: 08 Sep 2022, 03:04 PM IST
Premium- The largest fintech platform in India, PhonePe, said that 14 million debit and credit cards have been tokenized on the platform which is in line with the mandatory card tokenization of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
The largest fintech platform in India, PhonePe, said that 14 million debit and credit cards have been tokenized on the platform which is in line with the mandatory card tokenization of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which is a move to reduce the risk of fraud and safeguard customers' card details. With its Safecard Tokenization solution, PhonePe, one of the leading providers of digital payments, is actively advancing tokenization. PhonePe began developing tokens in December 2021 in accordance with RBI guidelines and was the first player in the digital payment sector to provide tokens with all three major card networks: Visa, Mastercard, and RuPay. At this time, more than 80% of PhonePe's active users have already tokenized their cards, and the company is on schedule to fulfill the RBI's deadline of September 30.
PhonePe is one of the industry giants in processing token transactions, having begun processing token-based transactions as early as April 2022 and nowadays handling nearly all valid transactions using tokens. In comparison to card-based transactions, the company's success rate for tokenized transactions has climbed by about 2% over the previous few weeks, said PhonePe in an official release.
Commenting on the development, Deep Agrawal, Head of Payments at PhonePe said, “We believe card tokenization is a very progressive move by the RBI, and we are on track to meet the September 30th deadline. PhonePe Safecard solution enables our users and merchant partners to continue experiencing the convenience of saved card transactions with increased security. For customers, their card details are saved only by the issuer banks and card networks, minimizing the risk of data leakage and transaction fraud. For merchants, safer transactions translate to consumer confidence in using cards on online platforms, thereby helping merchants witness growth in overall transactions.’’
As an addition to its current Quick Response (QR) Code-based UPI payment service, digital payment market leader PhonePe, recently announced that it is introducing its own payment gateway. Whereas, as a part of the Reserve Bank of India's Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) initiative, PhonePe claims to have made online payments possible for 80 lakh merchants in the past 18 months.
According to RBI, tokenization refers to the replacement of actual card details with an alternate code called the “token", which shall be unique for a combination of cards. The deadline for tokenizing debit and credit cards has been extended by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) till September 30, 2022.
