A government drive to expand banking services in India is giving a boost to home-grown card payment network RuPay, which expects to quadruple the number of users by March and make debit cards more acceptable in a nation where cash is still king.Started in 2012 by a company owned by 10 local and foreign banks, RuPay competes with global payment firms Visa Inc and MasterCard Inc for the few customers in Asia's third largest economy able to afford a debit or credit card.As of July, banks issued just under 435 million payment cards in India, a nation of 1.3 billion people. Most were debit cards.RuPay's share of daily card transactions, however, remains small compared with the global firms, which are more established, offer both debit and credit cards and are accepted by more retailers. RuPay currently offers only debit cards.
Visa Inc. (Visa) is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and electronic payments. Shares of V traded higher by 1.21% or $2.6/share to $216.88. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $180.11 and as high as $235.50. On average, 2385610 shares of V exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 3161719.
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