The Indian National Common Mobility Card
NCMC is an intelligent step towards ease of living.
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I have been a proponent of minimizing the number of cards I carry in my wallet. In fact, in 2004, I suggested designing a smart card to replace all the cards on my blog. So naturally, I was stoked about developments on Aadhar and the government’s policy “One nation, one card”. In 2019, the Government of India released the guidelines for the implementation of RuPay-based National Common Mobility Card (NCMC).
A similar concept is operational in Singapore through the eZ-Link and NETS based services.
A Smart Idea
NCMC has three components - a stored money card, a normal credit/debit card and an ID card component. All three exist on one physical card, and depending upon the machine that is swiping, you can access different functions within the card.
The NCMC allows the holder to store money on the card and then use it for transit services like buses, trains, ferries, taxis etc., with provisions for season tickets on the card. NCMC can be used to pay for para-transit, i.e. toll, parking, etc. In addition, NCMC will allow usage in retail and is particularly relevant for small-value transactions, e.g. vending machines.
Since NCMC is integrated with debit or credit cards, it allows for all the applications that use normal debit or credit cards.
The NCMC can be a tag or “charms” that can be appended to bags and phones or worn as bracelets, or applied as stickers (Fastag type).
The NCMC platform can be leveraged by all cities (under Smart Cities Initiative), making it easy for citizens to move about. This is also on top of the UPI-based payment system, so you can top up using normal UPI transactions.
Why not phone everywhere?
The phone-based payments, including UPI, Apple Pay and Google Pay, have slight challenges when it comes to using them for transportation.
Transportation cards need to be swiped fast, reliably and in areas where mobile connectivity is not guaranteed. An average swipe or tap using Apple Pay or Google Pay (from tapping the authorised phone to payment recognition by the machine) is 5-10 sec. The NCMC transaction will take 1-2 seconds. On transport ticketing counters, the delay adds up.
In Sum
Such initiatives are targeted towards ease of living, something PM Modi highlighted as his key concern.