Several Founders, Co-Founders, CXO Bankers, CXO Fintech professional & people who participated in the ePanel discussions:

  • Mr. Roopesh Chandran, Director, Business Development, Visa Inc
  • Mr. Muthu Krishnan, Associate VP – Merchant Acquisition, India Transact Services Ltd
  • Mr. Shirsha Ghosh, Co-Founder Torit Innovations
  • Mr. Sandeep Todi, Co-Founder & CBO, Remitr
  • Mr. Kamonasish Aayush Mazumdar, Founder & CEO at Foodieverse
  • Mr. Ajay B Panicker, CEO & Founder, NetPay Limited
  • Mr. Hemal Shah, former Technical Product Manager, Mastercard
  • Mr. Arun Tanksali, Co-founder & CTO, Nearex
  • Mr. Anupam Varghese, Chief Tinkerer, Tinkerbee Innovations
  • Mr. Ishan Vaish, India Partnership Manager- Worldwide Developer Relations, Apple
  • Vikas R Panditrao, Co-Founder, Forum of Industry and Academic Knowledge Sharing (FIAKS)
  • Many other CEO/CXO Bankers & Fintech professionals on FIAKS Forum requested to remain anonymous

Recently RBI released a circular on Streamlining QR Code infrastructure which mentioned RBI’s decision that Payment System Operators (PSOs) that use proprietary QR codes shall shift to one or more interoperable QR codes. And no new proprietary QR codes shall henceforth be launched by any PSO for any payment transaction [1]

Some members who gave a thumbs up to this move;

  • It’s important to differentiate between public infrastructure and private initiative/innovation. Proprietary QR codes should have been solved 5 years ago so this is in fact a good move.
  • If this were not allowed then we’re talking 10 QR codes for 10 wallets. That’s clearly costly for the merchant and for intermediate payment processors.
  • At the very least this will reduce the cost of processing by enabling a common set of standards and reducing duplication of infrastructure. Ultimately that will bring down the cost of processing as well, which is a good thing for providers and consumers alike.
  • While another member opines, “In the short term, this sounds inconvenient to players who were hoping to dominate the market with their might and hefty wallets, but in the long run, I personally feel this is a good move, for the end consumer which should be the focus. And definitely, a good move for the fintech ecosystem, by large because now even small startups will have access to the entire QR code network, very much like the mandatory open-banking prerogative in the EU. Open-banking or open-QR (in this case) will have no meaning if the bigger players chose not to participate and stay proprietary so, why not? I can definitely think of more positives than negatives, with this move.”

On the other hand, for some members it seems Banning exclusive QR codes is regulatory overkill;

  • Consumers and merchants should have a choice and if companies want to invest in distribution and acquisition then why should it matter.”

Register and Read the complete bespoke discussions 

Please register to unlock the full content!

Related Post