National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has informed that most of the mag-stripe cards are manufactured in India. The two companies manufacturing such cards in India are Versatile Card Technology Private Limited, Chennai and MCT Cards & Technology Limited, Mangalore. A very little quantity of these cards are manufactured outside India. However, most of the Smart Cards (EMV cards) are manufactured outside India.

All the debit cards in the country on ATMs are routed/processed by NPCI’s National Financial Network. For this Banks pay fee to NPCI. All the Visa and Master Card (MC) debit cards used on Point of Sale (POS) and E-commerce are routed/processed by Visa and Master Card. Credit Cards of Indian banks are processed on ATMs, POS and E-commerce by Visa/MC. Banks pay fee to Visa/MC.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Finance, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

Payment routing and processing: banks pay network fees to NPCI, Visa and Master Card for card transactions. Domestic production covers most magnetic stripe cards while most EMV smart cards are manufactured abroad. ATM debit traffic is routed via the national interbank switch with banks paying network fees; POS and e commerce debit and all credit card transactions are routed and processed by international card schemes, with banks paying processing fees to those schemes.