Modi takes UPI to France: Which other countries use the payments system?

Indians in France will soon be able to use Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for transactions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the diaspora in France on 13 July. The Indian leader is in Paris till Friday (14 July) when he will attend the Bastille Day military parade. Addressing the Indian community at La Seine Musicale, a performing arts centre on an island in scenic river Seine, Modi said, “Be it India’s UPI or other digital platforms, they have brought a huge social transformation in the country and I am happy that India and France are also working together in direction." “India and France have agreed to use UPI in France. In the coming days, it will begin from the Eiffel Tower, which means Indian tourists will now be able to pay in Rupees,” the Indian prime minister announced. How will UPI benefit Indian tourists in France? Which other countries have India’s digital payments system? Let’s take a closer look. How UPI in France will help India’s UPI enables users to make real-time cashless payments using a quick response (QR) code or a four or six-digit PIN. Indians visiting France will now be able to deploy this homegrown digital payments facility to carry out seamless transactions.

UPI will make it easier for Indian tourists who earlier relied mostly on forex cards or had to carry cash for making payments. Last year, the National Payments Corporation Of India (NPCI) – the umbrella organisation tasked with supervising retail payment systems in the country – had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with France’s online payment system, Lyra, for allowing UPI and Rupay Card in the European nation. Speaking to News18, a bank official said using UPI in France will be a “cost-effective method” of payment. “It will be a cost-effective method as compared to the traditional method of using forex cards, credit cards, etc. The recent UPI agreement between India and Singapore in February has also enabled people to save as much as 10 per cent on their cross-border payments between the two countries". Launched in 2016, UPI has witnessed rapid growth in India. In May this year, the number of UPI transactions touched 9.41 billion in May worth a whopping Rs 14.3 trillion in terms of value. ALSO READ: After big success at home, how India’s UPI is going global Countries accepting UPI India has expanded UPI services in more than a dozen countries across the world. Bhutan was the first to launch BHIM UPI, the Indian government’s digital payment app, in July 2021. The same year, Malaysia’s Merchantrade Asia partnered with NPCI International to permit real-time remittances to India through UPI. In March last year, Nepal adopted UPI for digital transactions, becoming the first foreign country to do so. India collaborated with Nepal’s Manam Infotech and Gateway Payments Service to make person-to-person (P2P), person-to-merchant (P2M) and cross-border payments operational in the country, officials told PTI. [caption id=“attachment_12866012” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Graphic: Pranay Bhardwaj[/caption] NPCI’s international arm, NIPL, has joined hands with Liquid Group, a leading cross-border digital payments provider, to facilitate UPI QR-based payments in 10 markets across north Asia and southeast Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, reported PTI.  Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in 10 countries, including Singapore, the United States, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United Kingdom, who have Non-Resident External (NRE) or Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) bank accounts can also avail UPI services. The diaspora in these countries can use their international mobile numbers to transact using UPI. India has signed a deal with the UAE’s Mashreq Bank to help the diaspora carry out transactions through UPI. In February, online payment app PhonePe rolled out ‘UPI international’ feature to enable cross-border UPI payments in the UAE, Singapore, Nepal and Bhutan. Indians travelling to these nations can make payments through UPI provided the foreign merchants have a local QR code, as per CNBC TV18. Earlier this year, India’s UPI linked with Singapore’s payment system, PayNow, for faster remittances between the two countries. This will help the Indian diaspora in Singapore, particularly migrant workers and students, to make quick and low-cost fund transfers. Officials told PTI in February this year that the NIPL has partnered with European payment services facilitator Worldline, to expand UPI services across Europe, particularly in nations such as Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Under the agreement, Worldline’s QR code-based mechanism will allow Indians to pay merchants in Europe using their mobile phones. According to a Mint report in June, India is in talks to take UPI to Gulf countries, including Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. “NPCI is in initial discussions with a few Gulf countries for developing cross-border remittances using UPI, which will be primarily bank account-to-bank account transfers. The discussions have been facilitated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and other-country central bank collaboration, and by our Indian mission offices,” NPCI managing director and chief executive Dilip Asbe told the business newspaper. With inputs from agencies