Post demonetization, Razorpay announces zero transaction fee on debit cards

Looks like online payment platform Razorpay is rightly taking on the current demonetisation chaos. The startup has announced that it is waiving off all service charges on debit card transactions for all of its 10,000+ merchants, from 12 PM on Nov 24 till December 31, 2016. This move is aimed at helping businesses affected by demonetization and encourage users to transact online. While some banks are still deciding upon the waiver proposed by RBI, Razorpay has taken initiative and is the first payment gateway to remove all charges for debit cards.

“Though we have not received confirmation regarding the waiver from all our partner banks, we have decided to launch zero transaction cost for debit cards across all our merchants. We acknowledge and support the effort by RBI to promote online transactions. This move fits in perfectly well with the long-term vision of a Digital India and will incentivize merchants to go cashless,” said Harshil Mathur, CEO & Co-Founder, Razorpay

Last week, Razorpay launched Razorpay POS app for brick and mortar businesses and eCOD payments. The mobile based seller POS App which is already available on Android Play Store allows businesses to accept digital payments in the physical world. The end user can now choose to pay through a variety of non-cash modes like credit/debit card, net banking, UPI or digital wallets like OlaMoney, Mobikwik, PayUmoney, and Freecharge while transacting offline at stores.

Debit cards are the most popular mode of online payments. In July 2016, a total of 25.94 million credit cards and 697.22 million debit cards were in operation, according to the Reserve Bank of India. In July 2016, a total number of transactions through credit cards were 79.44 million while the figure for debit cards was 129.07 million.

The number of transactions for debit cards rose by 36% whereas growth in credit card transactions was just 22.6% for the year ending July 2016. Now, with 0% transaction fee on receiving payments with debit cards, businesses will have additional incentive to encourage their customers to go cashless.