NPCI’s International Arm NIPL Partners With NeoPay To Roll Out UPI In UAE

NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL), an international arm of NPCI, has forayed into UAE after partnering with Mashreq Bank’s payment subsidiary–NeoPay. 

The move will help Indian tourists make seamless payments through BHIM UPI across NeoPay-enabled shops and merchant stores in the UAE. It will further transform the person-to-merchant (P2M) experience of Indians travelling to the country. 

Last year (2021), NIPL and NeoPay partnered to build an acceptance infrastructure in the UAE. The association was formed to boost digital payments in that country.  

The latest development comes after the NIPL partnered with Gateway Payments Service (GPS) and Manam Infotech to deploy UPI services in Nepal in February this year. 

GPS is the authorised payment system operator in Nepal and Manam Infotech would help in deployment of the services in Nepal.

NeoPay, a subsidiary of Mashreq, helps retailers, distributors and brands to digitise their businesses in the UAE. Its offerings include B2B commerce, plug and play digital distribution network, digital payments and reconciliation, digital loan, brand promotions and communication, etc. 

Founded in 2008, NPCI manages retail payments and settlement systems in India. It has introduced various payment reforms including RuPay Cards, UPI, BHIM, and NETC Fastag, among others. Of this, UPI is a real-time mobile-based payment system developed by NPCI to facilitate inter-bank transactions. In FY22, UPI recorded 45.6 Bn transactions worth $1 Tn. 

How NPCI Is Boosting The UPI Ecosystem

In April 2022, NPCI ordered banks, payment service providers, and third-party applications to introduce an online dispute resolution (ODR) system.

The introduction of the ODR system would address complaints relating to digital transactions done via the UPI and also, offer convenience to the customers.  

Besides this, all participants (banks, payment service providers and third-party applications) had been directed to ensure that credit and reversal processing is enabled as part of the implementation. 

If participants failed to do so, then NPCI would stop onboarding new customers for such participants from 1st October 2022 onwards. 

Recently, NPCI also permitted Facebook’s messaging app, WhatsApp to extend its UPI service to an additional 60 Mn users in India. 

In a press statement, it said, “NPCI has approved an additional 60 Mn users on UPI for WhatsApp. With this approval, WhatsApp will be able to expand the service to its 100 Mn users.”

NPCI’s move is a relief for WhatsApp which was trying to remove a cap on the number of users that can use its payment services. 

The Rise of the UPI Ecosystem

As per an Inc42 report, 54,057 Lakh UPI transactions were recorded in March 2022. Among all, PhonePe recorded the highest number of transactions with 25,271.5 Lakh transactions. It was followed by Google Pay with 18381.2 Lakh transactions.

While, the third and fourth in the line are Paytm and Amazon Pay that recorded 8371.4 Lakh and 763.4 Lakh digital transactions on their platforms respectively.

Moreover, WhatsApp and BHIM logged 25.4 Lakh and 248.8 Lakh digital transactions last month.