In a big leap for India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the fund transfer system could soon be used in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. These two countries have already opened to India's RuPay cards and talks are on to initiate the UPI payment services too. Both have a sizable population of Indian expatriates. The introduction of the UPI payments system could also be a big boost for Indians travelling to these countries.
"These two countries already have opened up to RuPay cards; now the target is to enable UPI payments. This will be a big boost for Indians travelling in those countries and, just like their debit card or credit card, they can pay via UPI," the Economic Times quoted a senior banker as saying.
The expansion of UPI to Singapore and UAE comes after the Nandan Nilekani-led committee on digital payments had suggested that NCPI should expand payment services like UPI, RuPay and BHIM to other countries as well.
UPI, which has over 141 banks on board right now, has emerged as a major payments alternative to debit, credit and e-wallets. In September alone, the UPI-based recorded 955.02 million transactions worth over Rs 1.61 lakh crore as compared 918.35 million transactions a month ago, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) data stated. On a year-on-year basis, UPI transactions have increased 2.3 times or 135 per cent.
UPI is a payment interface of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India. It powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application, merging several banking features, seamless fund routing and merchant payments into one hood. It also caters to the 'Peer to Peer' collect request, which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience. UPI allows immediate money transfer through mobile device round the clock and can be used to pay utility bills, over the counter payments, and barcode (scan and pay) based payments.
Edited by Manoj Sharma