Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the RuPay card in the UAE, during his two-day visit to the country. At the launch event, it was also announced that twelve major businesses outlets in the UAE will start accepting the RuPay card in the UAE, starting as early as next week.

Indian ambassador to the UAE, Navdeep Sing Suri announced the new development on Saturday during the official launch in Abu Dhabi. Indian PM Modi made the first purchase by swiping the RuPay card at a mock Chhappan Bhog Abu Dhabi outlet set up during the launch at the Emirates Palace.

The RuPay card is the Indian equivalent of the Master Card and Visa Card that can be used at point-of-sale terminals across the UAE. According to Suri, three banks in the UAE – Emirates NBD, Bank of Baroda and FAB – will start issuing the cards by next week.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a technology interface between the payment platforms in India and UAE was exchanged between the National Payments Corporation of India and UAE’s Mercury Payments Services. The UAE  the first country in the Middle East to witness the launch of the RuPay card.

Adeeb Ahamed, MD, Lulu Financial Group said low transaction processing fee makes RuPay more economically feasible for banks, merchants as well as consumers, and can be easily leveraged by business to reach out to a larger segment of the society. “RuPay has been gaining traction since it was first introduced in India in 2012, giving competition to other card networks internationally. The card is widely accepted at all major banks, their ATM networks as well as a large number of stores as well,” Ahamed added.