Payment Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) scheme
Part of: GS Prelims and GS-III – Economy
In news
The RBI recently announced the operationalisation of the payment infrastructure development fund (PIDF) scheme.
Key takeaways
Objective: To subsidise deployment of payment acceptance infrastructure in tier-3 to tier-6 cities, with a special focus on the north-eastern states of the country.
An advisory council (AC) under the chairmanship of RBI deputy governor BP Kanungo has been constituted for managing the PIDF.
The fund will be operational for three years effective from January 1, 2021 and may be extended for two more years.
The implementation of targets shall be monitored by the RBI with assistance from card networks, the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and the Payments Council of India (PCI).
Do you know?
The PIDF presently has a corpus of Rs 345 crore, with Rs 250 crore contributed by the RBI and Rs 95 crore by the major authorised card networks in the country.
The authorised card networks shall contribute in all Rs 100 crore.
The card issuing banks shall also contribute to the corpus based on the card issuance volume.
Besides, the PIDF shall also receive annual contributions from card networks and card issuing banks.