Diners Club International cards will be accepted at more ATMs, point-of-sale terminals

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has tied up with Discover Financial Services (DFS), a US-based direct banking and payments services company. Under this tie-up, Discover and Diners Club International cards will be accepted at NPCI ATMs and point-of-sale terminals for purchases in India.

It also will allow RuPay (the national card payment network in India) cardholders to utilise the Discover, Diners Club International and PULSE networks for international purchases and cash access outside of India, said a press release issued by NPCI.

The arrangement will be implemented in a phased manner. To begin with, DFS and DCI cards will be accepted at RuPay ATMs in India, followed by acceptance at RuPay POS locations. The final phase will enable acceptance of RuPay Global Cards on Discover's global payment network outside of India.

Currently, there are about 120 million DFS and Diners Club cards worldwide, which can be accepted on the RuPay network.

Similarly, the DFS and DCI cards will be accepted at over 90,000 ATMs that are linked to the NPCI's National Financial Switch. Eventually they would also be accepted at over six lakh POS terminals that are linked to the NFS, said an official from NPCI.

“The network-to-network alliance between DFS and NPCI eventually will result in the issuance of RuPay Global cards once the domestic RuPay cards being launched later this month stabilise,” said Mr A. P. Hota, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of NPCI.

Mr Hota added that seven promoter banks have signed an MoU with NPCI to be part of the pilot launch of domestic RuPay cards.

NPCI has been promoted by State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citibank and HSBC.