RBI Launches Payment Vision 2028 to Shape India’s Payment Frontier

The RBI unveils its Payments Vision 2028 to bolster consumer trust, curb digital fraud, and expand India's global footprint in financial technology.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) unveiled its Payments Vision 2028 policy framework. The goal is to deepen people’s trust in payment systems, reinforce resilience, and expand the global footprint of the digital payments ecosystem. The policy envisions empowering users and protecting against fraud. It aims to make cross-border payment frameworks more efficient and enhance safety in digital payments. The framework also seeks to promote ease of doing business, encourage digital payments-related research, and support systemic stability and integrity. Additionally, it looks to innovate in card payment technologies. With this policy, the RBI wants to ensure payments are compliant with AI-led innovations and leverage its research and institutional capacity.

One key highlight of the policy is the proposal of a “shared responsibility framework” for fraud liability. Through this, the RBI aims to expand the responsibility for unauthorized digital transactions and, as a result, banks are expected to tighten their onboarding and detection processes. The Payments Vision 2028 also outlines several other initiatives, as follows:

• Enabling the remitter to enable/disable transactions on any digital payment mode through issuer channels,

• Publishing reports on cross-border payments to track domestic trends, global developments, and strategic implications for India’s payment ecosystem,

• Reviewing the cross-border payments ecosystem to make it more efficient in practice,

• Streamlining authorization of cross-border payments under the Payment and Settlements Systems Act (PSS) 2007, and the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) 1999,

• Recognizing small payment system providers through the “Perpetual Regulatory Sandbox”,

• Developing payments research and training capacity,

• Building a framework for interoperability and innovation in the Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS),

• Establishing a cyber-key risk indicators (KRI) framework for non-bank payment system operators (PSOs),

• Reviewing the design and security system of checks and exploring the introduction of electronic checks,

• Facilitating enhanced access to payment data,

• Reimagining card payments in India,

• Implementing Payments Switching Service (PaSS),

• Bringing within the regulatory ambit the entities playing a critical role in the payments ecosystem, and

• Implementing a uniform Domestic Legal Entity Identifier (DLEI).

According to CIO Bulletin, this list of initiatives firmly establishes RBI’s intentions to ensure that the banking industry treats customers well and focuses on quality services instead of expending their energies on growth alone.