On November 4, 2019, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the opening of the first cohort under the Regulatory Sandbox (RS) with “Retail Payments”, as its theme.  In this regard, Reserve Bank received applications from 32 entities of which six have been selected for the ‘Test Phase’.
- Therefore as of November 16, 2020, two sandbox entities viz. Natural Support Consultancy Services Pvt. Ltd. of Jaipur, Rajasthan and Nucleus Software Exports Ltd. of New Delhi have started the first test phase of their products viz. “eRupaya” and “PaySe” respectively.
- The commencement of testing was delayed on account of the COVID-19 situation. The remaining four are expected to start the test phase shortly.
About Products:
i.eRupaya: It is a product of Natural Support Consultancy Services Pvt. Ltd.It is a set of Near-Field Communication (NFC) based prepaid card and Near-field communication (NFC) enabled Point of Sale (PoS) device to facilitate offline Person-to-Merchant (P2M) transactions and offline digital payments in remote locations.
ii.PaySe: It is a product of Nucleus Software Exports Ltd.It is an offline digital cash product which will help in connecting with rural areas for e-payments. The product proposes to help in digitization of payments in rural areas, starting with Self Help Groups (SHG).
What is a Regulatory sandbox?
It usually refers to live testing of new products or services in a controlled regulatory environment for which regulators may (or may not) permit certain relaxations for the limited purpose of the testing.
- The objective of the regulatory sandbox is to foster responsible innovation in financial services, promote efficiency and bring benefit to consumers.
- It also allows the regulator, innovators, financial service providers and customers to conduct field tests regarding benefits and risks of new financial innovations.
Recent Related News:
i.On September 30, 2020 The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in consultation with the Government of India (GoI) has fixed Rs 1,25,000 crore as the Ways and Means Advances (WMA) limit for the 2nd half of the financial year(FY) 2020-21, i.e., October 2020 to March 2021.
ii.On October 1, 2020, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) excluded six public sector banks (PSBs) from the Second Schedule of the RBI Act, 1934 following their merger with other banks with effect from April 01, 2020. The six banks are Syndicate Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC), United Bank of India, Andhra Bank, Corporation Bank, and Allahabad Bank.
About Reserve Bank of India (RBI):
Headquarters– Mumbai, Maharashtra
Formation– 1 April 1935
Governor– Shaktikanta Das
Deputy Governors– 4 (Bibhu Prasad Kanungo, Mahesh Kumar Jain, Michael Debabrata Patra, and M Rajeswar Rao)
