Policy Radar: Bringing convenience to cross-border investing

Cashfree completes test phase of regulatory sandbox on cross border payments

The Reserve Bank of India has released an update on the second cohort of the Regulatory Sandbox on cross-border payments. The four entities selected for the sandbox have successfully completed the testing phase. This includes Cashfree’s cross-border product, which facilitates purchase of assets listed on foreign exchanges, like publicly-listed shares, exchange-traded funds, units of mutual funds and other securities for Indian investors.

So what is the advantage Cashfree’s new product brings?

Let’s take an example of an investing platform targeting offshore investments, say in NASDAQ listed US stocks, for its customers. Using Cashfree Payments’ product it can provide:

A simple, integrated payment experience directly on its platform like any other payment gateway integration.
Payments directly via local payment methods of UPI and net banking.
Compliance with RBI and FEMA regulations like the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (A2 form, PAN, 1 year bank account statement) digitally on its platform instead of visiting a branch.
Faster funds settlement, which allows customers to start investing the next day instead of the usual 3-4 days.

The image was first published on Finextra

Impact on customers

Even with the wide range of Indian investment options, attraction for foreign stocks such as those of Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Google remains. For such customers, Cashfree Payments’ product makes offshore investments as convenient as any other online financial transaction today.

Impact on merchants and other REs

The successful exit of these entities from the sandbox framework will allow banks and other RBI-regulated entities (REs) to adopt these technologically innovative products for their daily banking and non-banking operations.

For those seeking to facilitate offshore investment, Cashfree’s product will allow them to offer a frictionless experience to their customers.

RBI allows trade settlement in INR

The RBI has issued a notification allowing trade arrangements for invoicing, payment, and settlement of exports and imports in INR. This means that cross-border trades can be denominated, invoiced and settled in Indian Rupees directly instead of foreign currencies. Authorised dealer banks (AD banks) enabling these will need prior RBI approval.

How does the arrangement work?

The basics first – a common method for facilitating international financial transactions is via correspondent banking, where one bank provides services to another bank in another country.

Basically bank A in country A opens an account with bank B in country B, denominated in the local currency of country B. Bank A calls this account its NOSTRO account (our account), while bank B calls the same account a VOSTRO account (your account). Once opened, bank B becomes an agent of sorts for bank A, allowing it to accept deposits, facilitate wire transfers, manage foreign exchange, etc. Facilitating international trade is one of the uses of correspondent banking arrangements.

Under the RBI’s arrangement, AD banks in India will open VOSTRO accounts for the foreign banks of foreign trading partners. Whenever an import or export happens, this VOSTRO account will be credited or debited. This means:

Indian importers will pay for imports they receive in INR, which will be credited into this VOSTRO account.
Indian exporters similarly will be paid for exports they make in INR, by debiting the balances in the VOSTRO account.

Other key points to note here are:

Exports and imports may be denominated and invoiced in INR.
The exchange rate will be market determined.
Settlement of these transactions will be in INR.

What is the impact of this arrangement?

This removes the dependency on currencies like the dollar and euro, allowing international trade to happen directly via Indian Rupee. As per the RBI notification itself, the arrangement was introduced to promote the growth of global trade, particularly exports, and to support the increasing interest of the global trading community in INR.

Broader implications for rupee convertibility

The arrangement has sparked a lot of conversation in the industry, given the situation in Russia. Many broader implications are also being highlighted, including reducing risks with exchange rate fluctuations, a first step towards enabling complete rupee convertibility and lowering costs for cross-border trade.

The impact on the dominance of the dollar for global trade is another factor, with expectations of a possible, gradual increase in the demand for the rupee.

The circular also indicates possible support to SWIFT alternatives, since it mentions allowing ‘exchange of messages’ in a way ‘agreed mutually between the banks of the partner countries’.

NPCI introduces UPI Plug-In services

The NPCI has introduced a new UPI ‘Plug-in’ feature, which allows a UPI app SDK from a UPI member bank (Payment Service Provider or PSP) to be ‘plugged-in’ into a merchant app, allowing an ‘inline’ payments experience for the merchant’s customers.

What does this mean for merchants and customers?

This means that customers will be able to directly enter their UPI PIN into the merchant app, instead of the common system of being redirected to the UPI app (known as the ‘Collect’ or ‘Intent’ workflows).

UPI is extremely popular offline due to the convenience of QR code-based mobile payments. The plug-in feature removes the friction of switching between the apps.

Only the features relevant for the merchant, such as payments, can be embedded this way into the merchant app. Though this will need the NPCI’s approval. For the full list of UPI functionalities, customers can continue to use their parent UPI app.

The partner app will act as a non-exclusive handle of the PSP bank, where the same handle will be used across multiple partner apps. This allows the partner app to have the same user profile (UPI ID + remitter account) as is already present in the parent PSP app.

How will customer privacy be protected?

From a privacy and security perspective, the NPCI guidelines have laid some rules. Firstly, the plug-in service must be managed only on bank-controlled infrastructure (either on-premise or on the cloud). For this, the parent PSP bank app must be certified as a UPI app, support interoperability and must be enabled for all mandatory UPI features.

Additionally, it must be ensured that the merchant partner app does not have access to sensitive customer data. The merchant should only be able to access information required to help customers raise a dispute via UPI Help.

Also, the merchant cannot share any UPI transaction data with a third party without the consent of the bank in question and the NPCI.

Lastly, banks must also ensure that the merchant app complies with data localisation norms.

Other notable updates

NPCI enhances e-RUPI framework

eRUPI voucher limits for govt. schemes have been enhanced from ₹10,000 to ₹1 Lakh. Also, all eRUPI vouchers can be issued for either one-time or multiple uses.

RBI opens second window for PA applications

Payment aggregator applicants have a 2nd window to apply for the license till September 30th, 2022, open even to those rejected for not meeting net worth criteria, etc. To reduce disruption, these can continue operations until the final acceptance/rejection.

FM instructs all PSBs to onboard AA Framework by July 31

In a plus for open banking, the Finance Minister has asked all public sector banks to onboard on the RBI’s Account Aggregator system by the end of July.

RBI’s prior approval required for change-in-control of non-bank PSOs

For improved corporate governance, all non-bank PSOs including PPIs and PAs will now need:

Prior RBI approval for any takeover/ acquisition or sale to an unauthorised entity
To intimate RBI within 15 days of any change in management or sale to an authorised entity

NPCI revises timelines for UPI ID Mapper

The NPCI has drawn out timelines for the phased onboarding of the next set of users onto UPI ID mapper – this is 50 million users per app by August end, 100 million by September end and all users by end of October. So far, 85 million users have been onboarded.

MoD approves entry of private sector banks in overseas procurement

The Ministry of Defence has allowed 3 private sector banks – HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank – to provide Letter of Credit and Direct Bank Transfer business for overseas procurement by the Ministry.

RBI & Bank Indonesia agree to co-operate in payment systems & digital financial innovation

RBI & Bank Indonesia have signed an MoU for improved mutual co-operation and to develop efficient payment systems and cross-border payment connectivity.

RBI releases Digital Payments Index for March 2022

The Digital Payments Index, which captures the extent of digitisation of payments in India, stands at 349.30 for March 2022, as against 304.06 for September 2021.

This edition has been assisted by Urmil Shah and edited by Sunny Lamba.

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