The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on January 5, 2021 said Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) has been operationalised to create 30 lakh new touch points every year for digital payments in Tier-3 to Tier-6 centres.
- The RBI in June 2020 had announced the creation of Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF).
- Objective: The objective behind creation of this fund is to subsidise deployment of payment acceptance infrastructure in Tier-3 to Tier-6 centres, with special focus on the north-eastern states.
- Advisory Council: An Advisory Council (AC), under the chairmanship of RBI deputy governor BP Kanungo, has been constituted for managing the PIDF.
- Period: PIDF will be operational for a period of three years from January 01, 2021, and maybe extended for two more years, depending upon the progress.
- Corpus: The PIDF has a corpus of Rs 345 crore. Rs 250 crore have been contributed by the RBI and Rs 95 crore by the major authorised card networks in the country.
- Target: To increase payments acceptance infrastructure by adding 30 lakh touch points every year – 10 lakh physical and 20 lakh digital payment acceptance devices.
- Acceptance: Physical PoS, mPoS (mobile PoS), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), and QR code-based payments.
