Bhutan To Become First Foreign Country To Adopt UPI

NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL), the International arm of National Payment Corporation of India and Royal Monetary Authority (RMA) of Bhutan have partnered for enabling and implementing BHIM UPI QR-based payments in Bhutan.

The service will be formally launched by the finance minister of India Nirmala Sitharaman on July 13 at a virtual ceremony in presence of the finance minister of Bhutan, Lyonpo Namgay Tshering, governor of Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan, among others.

The Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan is the central bank of Bhutan and was established under the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan Act of 1982.

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an instant real-time payment system, allowing users to transfer money on a real-time basis, across multiple bank accounts without revealing details of one’s bank account to the other party.

This launch of BHIM UPI in Bhutan will add a new milestone in financial integration between the two economies. The collaboration between NIPL and RMA will enable acceptance of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) powered BHIM App in Bhutan. RMA will ensure that the participating NPCI mobile application through UPI QR transactions is accepted at all RMA acquired merchants in Bhutan. The launch will benefit more than 200,000 tourists from India who travel to Bhutan each year. With this launch, Bhutan will become the first country to adopt Unified Payment Interface (UPI) standards for its QR deployment. Bhutan will also become the only country to both issues and accept RuPay cards as well as accept BHIM UPI.

“Our vision has always been focused on taking our robust and popular payments solutions to global markets,” said Ritesh Shukla, chief executive officer, NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL).

In 2020, UPI enabled commerce worth $457 Bn, which is equivalent to approximately 15% of India’s GDP.

Just last month, after the second wave of the Covid19 pandemic subsided, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) clocked a record 2.8 Bn transactions, up 10% month on month. It also reported transactions worth INR 5.47 Lakh Cr. The previous best performance, since inception, was in March 2021.

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