Federal Bank Extends UPI Services To NRIs On Mobile Banking App

In a bid to make transactions convenient for the non-residential Indians (NRIs), Federal Bank has launched UPI for NRIs feature on its mobile banking application FedMobile. 

The NRI users will be able to make payments using their non-residential external (NRE) accounts, which traditionally would be challenging across the Tier II and Tier III towns, where POS (Point of Sale) machines may not be readily available. 

Commenting on the development, Federal Bank’s Executive Shalini Warrier said, “The introduction of UPI for NRIs on FedMobile will enable our valued NR customers to transact seamlessly.”

The plan has been approved by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for NRIs from countries including Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the UK. 

In addition to FedMobile, the feature will also be available on other UPI applications that support global UPI transactions to offer flexibility to the users. 

Advocating for the convenience of UPI payments, the Indian government has been pushing UPI beyond the borders. 

At the beginning of this year, the PhonePe launched features to allow global UPI transactions. Its UPI International feature enables merchant outlets with a local QR code in the UAE, Singapore, Mauritius, Nepal and Bhutan to receive payments via UPI. 

Following this, Paytm also announced its plans to launch the UPI International feature. 

In the recent past, UPI has been launched in Nepal and France, while the government is in talks with other countries including New Zealand and a few countries from South America and Africa. 

In September, the UPI transactions crossed the 1,056 Cr mark. The number of transactions grew over 3% month-on-month (MoM) while the transacted amount grew a little over 4%.