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Abu Dhabi, Aug 24 (IANS): Visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the RuPay Card, an Indian indigenous equivalent of Mastercard or Visa, in the UAE on Saturday and brought 1 kg of laddoo using the card.

The United Arab Emirates is the first country in the Middle East where the RuPay card has been launched.

Twelve major businesses outlets in the UAE will start accepting the RuPay card starting next week, Indian Ambassador to the country Navdeep Sing Suri announced during the card launch at the Emirates Palace here.

Modi used his RuPay card for purchasing the laddoos at a mock Chhappan Bhog Abu Dhabi outlet set up during the launch.

"He bought one kilo of motichur laddoo by using the card," Vinay Verma, Owner and Managing Director of Chhappan Bhog told the Khaleej Times.

"It is great pleasure and honour for us to be part of this ambitious launch. He is going to take it (the laddoo) to Bahrain as prasad for the temple. He said he is very keen that we will be using the RuPay card," said Verma.

Ambassador Suri said three banks in the UAE -- Emirates NBD, Bank of Baroda and FAB -- will start issuing the card 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.

Adeeb Ahamed, Managing Director, 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.

"Indian tourists, who are one of the largest numbers to come to UAE will be able to utilize the RuPay cards here as well, as more strategic partnerships will make it more viable. We believe that through the building of a larger ecosystem, RuPay can position itself as a reliable, premium brand in the payment cards space."