Planning a leap forward 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 access to India's RuPay cards and talks are on to initiate UPI services as well. The introduction of such a system could also be a big boost for Indians travelling to these countries as well as the sizable number of Indian expatriates in 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," sources in the banking sector said.
The expansion of UPI to Singapore and UAE comes after the Nandan Nilekani-led committee on digital payments had suggested that the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) should expand payment services like UPI, RuPay and BHIM to other countries as well.
The NPCI is an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India.
UPI, which has over 141 banks on board right now, has emerged as a major payment alternative to cards and e-wallets. In September alone, the UPI system recorded 955.02 million transactions worth over INR 1.61 lakh crore as compared to 918.35 million transactions a month ago, NPCI data stated.
UPI transactions have increased 2.3 times or 135 per cent since last year.
UPI allows immediate money transfer through mobile devices round-the-clock and can be used to pay utility bills, over the counter payments, and barcode (scan and pay)-based payments.