New Delhi / Tokyo — National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and JCB International Co. Ltd. (JCBI), the international operations subsidiary of JCB Co. Ltd, operationalised acceptance of JCB payment cards at ATMs and POS terminals in India. Through this strategic partnership, JCB cards acceptance coverage in India will reach to about 100 per cent for both ATMs and POS terminals in the coming few years.
This development has enabled JCB to serve increasing number of tourists and business professionals with payment options at ATM and POS in India especially from Asia where JCB has large number of card members. The total card member base of JCB is about 101 million which spans across 23 countries and territories.
The scope of this strategic partnership also covers issuance of co-badged RuPay-JCB International cards by NPCI member banks in India. This works as a RuPay card in India and as a JCB card outside the country.
Mr. A. P. Hota, Managing Director & CEO, NPCI said, “NPCI-JCB collaboration is one of the most valued alliance for our homegrown card network, RuPay. We are pleased to provide access to about 225,000 ATMs and over 2 million POS terminals in India through our National Financial Switch and RuPay network. With such initiatives, both the companies will continue to provide high value service to our esteemed customers.”
Mr. Ichiro Hamakawa, President and CEO, JCB Co., Ltd. and Chairman and CEO, JCB International Co., Ltd. said, “India, with its very large population and rapidly growing economy, has become a key market for our global expansion strategy. Today’s business launch is a crucial step to us. In fact, this is one of the most meaningful moment for the history of JCB’s global business in that 100% POS and ATM in India will be accepting JCB cards. Also, I hope this launch can contribute to the success of The Year of Japan-India Friendly Exchanges”, which was agreed between both governments.
In February the pilot project was initiated for JCB credit and debit cards acceptance on ATM network and POS. For ATM acceptance the association was with ICICI Bank, Union Bank of India and Indian Bank while for POS acceptance it was with Axis Bank and ICICI Bank. Currently, JCB cards are accepted by 32 banks on ATMs and by two banks on POS.