In late April 2026, the RBI quietly released a draft Master Direction on Prepaid Payment Instruments — the rulebook that governs every “kids’ card” in India, Junio included. Public comments close on May 22, 2026, after which the final rules will replace the existing August 2021 framework.

If you’re a Junio parent, this is the regulation that quietly decides what your kid’s card can and can’t do. The draft isn’t a shock — most of it just formalises practice that already existed. But there are a handful of things worth knowing, especially before the final version locks in.

This post is not a regulatory advisory. It’s a parent-facing readout of what’s in the draft, what stays the same, and what’s worth flagging in your own comments to the RBI before the window closes.

What the draft actually changes

The draft restructures PPIs into a cleaner set of categories: General Purpose PPIs (split into Small PPI and Full-KYC PPI) and Special Purpose PPIs (Gift, Transit, and a new bucket for NRIs and foreign nationals). Junio’s card sits squarely in the General Purpose category — the same bucket it’s always been in.

The headline limits parents should care about:

  • Small PPI (the state your kid’s card is in before V-KYC): ₹10,000 outstanding balance cap, no fund transfers in, no cash withdrawals. This is unchanged from current practice.
  • Full-KYC PPI (after V-KYC): ₹2,00,000 outstanding balance cap, with a ₹2,00,000 monthly debit cap layered on top.
  • ₹25,000/month cap on person-to-person transfers out of a Full-KYC PPI. New as a hard, written limit. Most kids will never bump into it, but a teen splitting a hostel rent or sending money to a sibling could.
  • ₹10,000/month cash loading cap. If grandparents hand over cash and a parent loads it onto the card, this is the ceiling per calendar month.

For a typical Junio family — pocket money loaded from a parent bank account, kid spending at canteens and online — none of this changes the day-to-day experience. The limits are roomy enough that a regular ₹800–₹2,500/month allowance, plus the occasional birthday top-up, sits well below the caps.

The interoperability piece — quietly the biggest win

Tucked into the draft is a requirement that all Full-KYC PPIs must be interoperable through card networks or UPI. In plain terms: once your kid’s Junio card is fully KYC’d, it has to work everywhere a regular card or UPI works — at a kirana store with a QR code, at the school canteen, at the e-commerce checkout, at the metro counter.

This was already the direction the market was moving, and Junio already supports it. But making it a written rule means no PPI issuer can quietly fence off their card to a closed-loop merchant network. For parents, that’s a structural protection: the card you load money onto can be spent the way the kid actually lives, not in a walled garden.

Get the Junio app. A pocket-money card that already meets the 2026 draft rules — interoperable, fully disclosed, and built for Indian families. Download Junio.

Stronger guardrails on the issuer side

Most of the draft’s bulk is about the licensed issuer behind the brand — for Junio, that’s Transcorp International Limited. As a parent you don’t deal with the issuer day-to-day, but their financial strength is the reason your kid’s money is safe sitting on the card. The draft tightens that:

  • Minimum net worth of ₹5 crore at the application stage for a non-bank PPI issuer. This is meaningful — it filters out under-capitalised players who shouldn’t be holding consumer money.
  • Escrow account in a scheduled commercial bank in India. Every rupee loaded on a PPI has to sit in a separate, ring-fenced escrow account. The issuer cannot touch it for their own operations. If the issuer ever gets into trouble, the money on cards is structurally protected.
  • Mandatory grievance redressal under the RBI Integrated Ombudsman Scheme. If you have an unresolved complaint after 30 days, you can take it to the RBI directly at no cost.

These aren’t new ideas — they were largely in the 2021 framework — but the draft makes the requirements crisper and the reporting obligations tighter. For a category that handles kids’ money, that’s the right direction.

What’s worth flagging before May 22

A few things in the draft are worth thinking about as a parent — and worth raising in a public comment if you feel strongly:

The ₹10,000/month cash loading cap is a sensible anti-money-laundering rule, but it does pinch the families where grandparents or aunts give cash for festivals and the parent then loads it. For most months it’s irrelevant; for a Diwali or a birthday it can bite. A cleaner exemption for documented one-off cash gifts (against a receipt or a formal cash-gift declaration) would be reasonable to ask for.

The ₹25,000/month P2P transfer cap is fine for most teens but could be limiting for a college-going 17-year-old splitting hostel costs with friends. The cap is per-month, so it resets, but a higher ceiling for Full-KYC PPI holders above 16 might be worth proposing.

The draft is not the place to ask for credit features, overdrafts, or interest on the card balance — none of those will ever fly under PPI rules, and Junio doesn’t try to offer them. (Money on a PPI is, by RBI design, prepaid. Junio’s FD-style products live outside the PPI in a separate, regulated FD instrument.)

What this doesn’t change

A few myths to put down clearly:

  • Junio doesn’t become “less safe” or “more risky” because of the draft. If anything, the issuer-side rules get stricter.
  • You don’t need to redo your KYC. Existing Full-KYC PPI holders will continue under the new rules; no fresh paperwork has been signalled.
  • Limits aren’t going down. The ₹2 lakh outstanding cap for Full-KYC PPI is the same as today.
  • The card isn’t going to stop working at any merchant. Interoperability is being strengthened, not narrowed.

Skip this post if

You’re not a Junio user, or you’re looking for an investment / loan product. PPIs are not bank accounts, they don’t earn interest, and they’re not credit. If your question is “how do I borrow money for my child’s school fees?” — this isn’t the rulebook that governs that, and Junio isn’t that product.

The takeaway

The 2026 draft PPI rules are largely a tightening, not a reset. The day-to-day experience of a Junio family — load, spend, learn — isn’t changing. The rules around the licensed issuer get stricter (good for parents), interoperability becomes mandatory (good for kids), and the ombudsman path becomes clearer (good for everyone).

If you have a strong view on the cash loading cap or the P2P limit, the RBI accepts public comments until May 22, 2026 — submissions go through the RBI website. It’s a rare window where parent voice can directly shape the rules that govern your kid’s card.

Have feedback? Email [email protected].