Mumbai, Oct 8 (IANS): The RBI has proposed a framework for geo-tagging of physical payment acceptance infrastructure of merchants for widening access to digital payments.

Geo-tagging involves capturing geographical coordinates - viz latitude and longitude of physical payment acceptance infrastructure - Point of Sale (PoS) terminals, Quick Response (QR) codes, etc., used by merchants.

The tagging is expected to complement the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) framework by better deployment of acceptance infrastructure and wider access to digital payments.

Deepening digital payments penetration across the country is a priority area for financial inclusion. The setting up of PIDF to encourage deployment of acceptance infrastructure and create additional touch points is a step in this direction.

To ensure a balanced spread of acceptance infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country, it is essential to ascertain location information of existing payment acceptance infrastructure, the RBI said in a statement.

In this regard, geo-tagging technology, by providing location information on an ongoing basis, can be useful in targeting areas with deficient infrastructure for focussed policy action, it added.