The indigenous alternative in the payments space to Mastercard and Visa, RuPay, took a big stride with Reserve Bank-promoted National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) launching the card in partnership with Bank of India. Bank of India has become the fourth partner bank for NPCI.

Over the past two months, it has tied up with three regional rural and co-operative banks and distributed 10,000 cards, NPCI's Managing Director and Chief Executive A P Hota said.

The card, christened "Dhan Aadhar", has the 12-digit Aadhar number given by the Unique Identification Authority of India, besides the conventional 19-digit number.

It also carries a photograph of the accountholder, which helps it serve as an ID-card like a passport, Bank of India Chairman and Manging Director Alok Misra said.

The Padgha village in state of Maharashtra was chosen for the launch as all the residents in the local gram panchayat have already got Aadhar numbers, he said.

Hota said his organisation has already integrated with the servers of the UIDAI which would enable it real time access to cross-verify details like bioemtrics and photograph.

Through this card, an accountholder can transact by giving thumb impression at a terminal manned by a business correspondent in the rural areas while it can act like a conventional card at an ATM, where the accountholder will have to give a four-digit PIN, he added.

When asked if it will also allow transactions at merchant outlets and work like a debit card, Hota replied in the negative. The NPCI would be required to do more integration and call for more regulatory clarity to do so, he said.