If we look at India’s accomplishments over the past few years, one to top the list will be Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Bharat’s ‘Digital Ashwamedha’. The others can be vaccinating the world’s second-largest population, building houses for them, linking them with Adhar and banking systems, getting them tap water, pensions, food and the list goes on and on.
On July 13, Organiser reported that France is adopting the Indian digital payment mode, developed indigenously, the UPI. France is not the only country to do so, the list includes, Singapore, UAE, Oman, Bhutan, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, France and BENELUX markets. Europe being among the latest regions to accept India’s payment systems.
In February 2023, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw while interacting with the media said that, India had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with 13 countries that want to adopt the UPI interface for digital payments, and that Singapore has completed its UPI integration.
These global partnerships have come through as the NIPL (National Payments Corporation of India, International Payments Limited) which is forging partnerships with different countries to build a huge acceptance network for RuPay and UPI, which will allow Indian travellers to make payments via these channels in their destination country of travel.
Here is a list of countries adopting UPI
Bhutan
Bhutan adopted the system in July 2021, the company partnering with India in doing so is the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan. By doing so, Bhutan become the first country to adopt India’s UPI standards for its quick response (QR) code. It is also the second country after Singapore to have BHIM-UPI acceptance at merchant locations. On July 13, 2021, UPI was made available to the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan. BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) is India’s digital payment application that works through UPI, a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application.
Singapore
In September 2021, Singapore adopted the UPI and the company partnered with India’s NPCI Monetary Authority of Singapore, PayNow. In July 2022, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) signed an agreement with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to implement interoperability between UPI and PayNow. The UPI-PayNow linkage will enable users of each of the two fast payment systems to make instant, low-cost fund transfers on a reciprocal basis without a need to get onboarded onto the other payment system.
PayNow is the fast payment system of Singapore, which enables peer-to-peer funds transfer service, available to retail customers through participating banks and Non-Bank Financial Institutions (NFIs) in the country. It enables users to send and receive instant funds from one bank or e-wallet account to another in Singapore by using just their mobile number, Singapore NRIC/FIN, or VPA.
UAE
In November 2021, UAE joined in with Network International. NIPL has partnered with LuLu Financial Holding, Mashreq Bank, and Network International in UAE to enable UPI payments. On April 21, 2022, UPI was launched in the country through Mashreq’s NeoPay.
Nepal
In February 2022, Nepal joined UPI with Gateway Payment Services, Manam Infotech. Nepal became the first foreign country to deploy UPI as a payment platform. NIPL partnered Gateway Payments Service (GPS), an authorised payment system operator in Nepal, and Bengaluru-based Manam Infotech. UPI will be deployed in Nepal as a digital public benefit to bolster interoperable real-time person-to-person (P2P) and to-merchant (P2M) payment transactions.
Bahrain
Bahrain has expressed interest in having in place a payment integration system like the Indian UPI and Singaporean PayNow linkage. Initial discussions have taken place; fintech is a clear priority for the small Gulf kingdom.
France
On July 13, 2023, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India and France have agreed to implement India’s UPI payment mechanism in France, starting from the Eiffel Tower. This move will allow Indian tourists in France to make payments in Indian rupees, marking a significant development in bilateral trade and tourism between the two countries. In June 2022, France joined in with Lyra company. In August 2022, United Kingdom joined the Indian digital payments system via Terrapay, PayXpert.
United Kingdom
NIPL has entered into a partnership with European payment services facilitator Worldline, with the intention of expanding the acceptance of Indian payment channels across Europe. Under the partnership, Worldline’s QR code-based mechanism will allow merchants’ Point-of-Sale (PoS) systems in Europe to accept UPI payments from Indians using their mobile phones. At a later stage, Indian customers will also be able to use their RuPay debit or credit cards to make payments in Europe.
Apart from enabling Indians to travel hassle-free and enjoy seamless payment infrastructure, this step will also augment the customer-related benefits available to European merchants due to an increase in footfall and spending from Indian tourists.
Oman
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Central Bank of Oman (CBO) and NIPL in October 2022 will enable Indian RuPay cards and the UPI platform in Oman to facilitate seamless digital remittances, which will benefit Indian workers and professionals. According to the Indian Embassy in Oman, there are about 624,000 Indians in Oman, of which about 483,901 are workers and professionals as of May 2021.
Malaysia
In August 2021, Malaysia adopted the interface and the company partnering with India was Merchantrade Asia.
In September 2021, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan entered into a written MoU with India to join UPI. The company making this possible is Liquid Group. Others on the list are Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, and Switzerland to join the Indian payments system in October 2022.
Since its launch in 2016, the popularity of UPI in India has been steadily growing. According to a recent report titled ‘India Digital Payments Report’ by Worldline, India witnessed 20.57 billion online transactions amounting to INR 36.08 trillion in the second quarter of the financial year 2022.
RBI data indicates that UPI transactions reached a total of INR 139.2 trillion in FY 2022-23, accounting for around 73 percent of all non-cash transactions in India during 2022.
In April 2023, UPI transactions reached INR 8.9 billion, with a total transaction value of INR 14.07 trillion. This indicates a 59 percent increase in UPI transactions compared to April 2022 and a 49 percent growth in transaction value from the previous year.
With more than 48 billion digital transactions, Bharat led the global list in 2021. Bharat did almost three times more transactions than China, which is second by completing 18 billion transactions, and 6.5 times more than the transactions done by the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
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