# NCMC design and technical limitations

DevFeed: [NCMC design and technical limitations](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/ncmc-design-and-technical-limitations-39787.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://anuragbhatia.com/post/2026/ncmc-design-and-limitations/>)

Published: 2026-01-03T18:46:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Personal blog of Anurag Bhatia](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/personal-blog-of-anurag-bhatia.md>)

Topics: [Internet](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/internet.md>), [Transactions](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/transactions.md>), [Risk](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/risk.md>), [systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/systems.md>)

Tags: [card](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/card.md>), [dmrc](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/dmrc.md>), [internet](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/internet.md>), [ncmc](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ncmc.md>), [npci](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/npci.md>), [payment-systems](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/payment-systems.md>), [payments](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/payments.md>)

## AI overview

The article examines India's National Common Mobility Card (NCMC), focusing on its offline-wallet design and how it differs from online UPI and card payments used in other transit systems.

## Source excerpt

I was in Mumbai a few months ago for the Equinix India Peering forum. The event happened to be very near the airport & I found that the airport, conference venue, hotel, and a few other locations I was visiting were all near the newly built Mumbai Line 3 (Aqua Line). To save on hassle with regular tickets, I went for an NCMC (National Common Mobility Card). Most people travelling in the Delhi metro would be aware of it by now, thanks to a bit of marketing push inside the metro train with announcements. Mumbai line 3 has a tie-up with SBI for the card, and thus, I got the SBI card. Ended up using it in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai over the last few months. Lately, I have been reading about way NCMC works, the limitations of the Indian NCMC design compared to other mass transit systems. In many countries, mass transit systems simply use MasterCard/Visa/Apple Pay tap and charge directly from the respective card (credit/debit card, etc.), like the London tube, Stockholm metro, HK airport express, Singapore, etc. Indian deployment is bit different. Indian NCMC offline wallet concept The whole idea of NCMC is to have a single card which can make payment for public transport, including metro, buses etc across the country digitally. It has to be fast and reliable, and this is where the whole tech differs from systems like UPI or Visa/MasterCard/Rupay POS payments. In case of UPI as well as credit/debit card payments on POS machines - entire transaction runs online. Money goes from the person paying the amount to the receiver as part of a settlement facilitated by NPCI. I don't need to go in detailed steps involved there, but the key idea is that there's an active involvement of 1) Payer's APP 2) Payer's bank 3) Receiver's PSP 4) Receiver's bank 5) NPCI UPI switch, etc. All these have to work and most important - internet has to work. 😀 All this largely works well for casual payments across the vendors, but not for transit payments, especially at metro stations. It easily takes