The UPI mode of transactions is a huge hit in India. UPI payments are accepted at everywhere, right from roadside stalls to grand retail outlets.
And now, UPI can be used across borders as well!
Reports have confirmed that Singapore’s PayNow and India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will now be linked in order to make it possible to send cross-border remittances more quickly and affordably.
Read on to find out all the details!
UPI To be Linked With Singapore’s PayNow For Cross-Border Connectivity
As confirmed by latest reports, on February 21, cross-border connectivity would essentially be launched in front of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Shaktikanta Das, governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), will conduct the launch, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
The action will guarantee that UPI’s advantages are not restricted to India alone, but extend to other nations as well. Workers who visit Singapore for a brief time and typically forgo about 10% of the total as bank fees for money transfers will benefit from UPI-PayNow.
According to the PMO, a link like UPI-PayNow could be used as a template for building an infrastructure for cross-border payments between India and Asean nations.
UPI Linking To Help Tourists, Students And Indian Public in Singapore
Through instant and inexpensive money transfers from Singapore to India and vice versa, it will also benefit the Indian diaspora in Singapore, particularly migrant workers and students. Such Asean cooperation on payment connectivity would help tourists, small businesses, and enterprises, as well as migrant workers.
As we reported recently, UPI accounted for 52% of the 8,840 billion rupees ($126 trillion) in digital financial transactions in FY22, according to the government’s pre-budget economic survey. In FY19, the country’s 3,100 crore digital transactions only accounted for 17% of UPI, according to the Economic Survey (2018-19).
The survey found that between FY19 and FY22 (the calendar year), UPI transactions increased 121 percent in value and 115 percent in volume. According to the Economic Survey, in December 2022, UPI reached its highest-ever mark with 782 crore transactions worth a combined Rs 12.8 lakh crore.
