EMI facility on your debit card? Visa introduces new platform; here's all you need to know

The global payments technology company Visa has recently introduced a platform where debit card holders from across the globe can get access to EMI facilities for their online purchases on e-commerce websites.

"There are over 2 crore unique credit cardholders, while it is estimated that around 22 crore debit cardholders are eligible for credit facilities. This increases the number of creditworthy individuals by a factor of 10", Times of India quoted Arvind Ronta, Visa's head of product for India and South Asia, as saying.

Although banks and e-commerce sites have been offering EMI facilities for debit card purchases, but these have been based on one-to-one tie-ups between the banks and merchants. However, as Visa introduces this platform, it will enable all the banks that have signed up for this service to get access to all the merchants that are on board on this platform.

This is the first time that a payments network company is providing this facility to the users.

Merchants who offer the same facility can do this for debit cards of all banks that have signed up for the platform utilising a simple Application Programming Interface (API) integration.

"The credit underwriting will be done by the banks. They will determine the eligibility of the cardholder and the tenure of credit", Ronta said. All this is done within seconds so the customer can have a smooth experience while purchasing online. The facility is available for all debit card issuers except for customers of payments banks as they are barred from providing credit or overdraft facility.

E-commerce giants like Flipkart and Amazon have been offering this facility to customers of banks with which they have a tie-up.

EMI facility on debit cards allows customers of the banks on the platform to convert their high value transactions into easy instalments.

(Edited by: Nehal Solanki)

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