UPI Users Get A Boost; Now, Indians Can Receive Payments From Singapore Via UPI & PayNow

In a major development, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has expanded the facility for Indians to now receive money from Singapore instantly and securely using major Unified Payments Interface (UPI) apps as well as those of popular banks.

It is pertinent to mention here that India and Singapore last year linked their respective digital payment systems, UPI and PayNow, to make cross-border payments easy.

Made possible by a cross-border linkage between the Unified Payments Interface and PayNow, Indian diaspora in Singapore can now send remittances directly into the bank accounts of Indians, the NPCI said in a statement on Thursday (January 11).

The facility will be available for users of the BHIM, Paytm and PhonePe apps as well as those using apps of Axis Bank, DBS Bank India, ICICI Bank, Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank and State Bank of India.

The statement further added that more third-party application providers (TPAPs) and bank apps such as Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Canara Bank, Central Bank of India, Federal Bank, HDFC Bank, IDFC First Bank, IndusInd Bank, Karur Vysya Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Punjab National Bank, South Indian Bank, and UCO Bank are expected to be added to the linkage soon. 

As of now, the daily transaction limit for undertaking cross-border remittance transactions through the UPI-PayNow linkage has been capped at INR 62,436.

Thanks to the interoperability enabled by the joint efforts of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) that the cross-border linkage has been made active for the major UPI apps.

It is estimated that the cross-border flow of money between India and Singapore crosses $1 billion annually. 

As per Inc42’s report, the number of UPI transactions surged almost 60% to a record 11,768 Cr in 2023 from 7,404.45 Cr in 2022. The total value of UPI transactions also zoomed over 40% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 182.84 Lakh Cr last year.

With the rising adoption among merchants and users alike, the total value of UPI transactions surpassed the INR 18 Lakh Cr mark for the first time in December 2023. In comparison, the total value of UPI transactions stood at around INR 12.8 Lakh Cr in December 2022.

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