Singapore, UAE Have Adopted UPI And RuPay, Looking At Other Countries: FM Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the government is ‘working together’ with many countries to increase the adoption of state-backed fintech products like RuPay cards and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) across the globe. 

Sitharaman made the comments while responding to a question on the sidelines of an event organised by Washington-based think tank The Brookings Institution.

“…the UPI, the BHIM app, and NPCI are all now being worked in such a way that their systems in their respective country, however robust or otherwise, can talk to our system and the interoperability itself will give strength for Indians’ expertise in those countries,” Sitharaman said.

She also noted that countries such as Singapore and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have come forward to adopt RuPay, India’s homegrown card payments network, and UPI in their respective countries.

It is pertinent to note that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in July this year, signed an agreement with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to implement interoperability between UPI and PayNow. 

On the other hand, NPCI’s international arm, NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), has partnered with financial institutions such as LuLu Financial, Mashreq Bank and Network International in the UAE to enable UPI payments. 

Sitharaman is currently on a week-long trip to the US to attend annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

RuPay, UPI See Global Adoption 

Earlier this week, NIPL announced its partnership with French digital payments firm Worldline. The move marked NPCI’s Europe foray as it gears up for launch across Switzerland and BENELUX (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg).

In September, NIPL also signed a deal with Singapore-based Liquid Group to enable UPI QR-based payments in ten countries including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Philippines, among others. 

Besides, nations such as France, Bhutan, Nepal, Malaysia,Oman and the United Kingdom have also adopted the state-backed UPI.

The NIPL has adopted a multi-pronged approach to expand its services across the globe. While it has partnered with the Bhutanese central bank to deploy payment services in the neighbouring country, the payments body has worked out agreements with digital payments firm Lyra in France. 

The expansion drive is largely focused on enabling ease of access to digital payments for Indians travelling abroad. 

This is among a handful of major announcements made by the NPCI in the last one month. Earlier in October, the NPCI also launched a collaborative initiative to onboard payments-oriented fintech players.to further give impetus to the digital payments landscape in India.

Last week, Oman also signed a pact with the NPCI, allowing homegrown offerings such as UPI and RuPay credit and debit cards to be accepted in the Middle-East country. The NPCI has also unveiled a slew of new initiatives such as UPI 123PAY and UPI LITE to scale digital payments in the country. 

Meanwhile, UPI payments continue to be on the rise in the country. In September, it recorded 678 Cr transactions worth INR 11.16 Lakh Cr.