Page 55 - Mann Ki Baat - English, February,2023
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ensuring that the benefits of UPI
are not limited to India alone, but "India’s progress in
digitalization and financial
that other countries benefit from
inclusion is becoming
it too. The UPI-PayNow linkage
increasingly well-known
closely aligns with the G20’s
outside the country. The India-
financial inclusion priorities of
Singapore UPI-PayNow link
driving faster, cheaper, and
will provide a useful template
more transparent cross-border
for linking UPI with payment
payments.
systems of other countries,
NIPL (NPCI International
to achieve more such cross-
Payments Limited) has
border financial connectivity,
undertaken various initiatives
regionally and globally."
across nations to enable cross- P. Kumaran
border acceptance of BHIM UPI High Commissioner of
QR at merchant establishments. India to Singapore
It has gained acceptance
in Singapore (March 2020), to enable merchants’ point-of-
Bhutan (July 2021), and the UAE sale (POS) systems in Europe to
and Nepal (February 2022). accept payments from UPI. India
Nepal, in fact, became the is in talks with central banks
first foreign country to deploy and payment service providers
UPI as its payment platform. of around 30 countries for the
NIPL has signed an agreement adoption of UPI, and France,
with Singapore-based Liquid Oman, and the UK have already
Group to enable UPI QR-based signed MoUs for the same.
payments in 10 countries across Affordable, accessible,
north and south-east Asia. convenient, efficient, safe, and
NIPL has also entered into a secure – India’s UPI has taken
partnership with a European the world by storm. Fuelled
payments facilitator, Worldline, by progressive Government
reforms like the promotion of
open stack technology and a
separate law for Payment and
Settlement Systems have had
a catalyzing impact on India’s
Fintech ecosystem, which has
emerged as one of the fastest-
growing ecosystems in the world.
These, supported by the Prime
Minister’s visionary leadership,
have been instrumental in
driving globalisation of India’s
best-in-class digital payment
infrastructure. The day is not
far off when UPI will be a world
standard.
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