Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Feb 21: India and Singapore on Tuesday integrated their respective online payment systems, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) of India and PayNow of Singapore, in a first-of-its-kind partnership with another nation to enable frictionless cross-border transactions between the two.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India both attended the virtual launch event.
Residents in both nations would be able to send cross-border remittances more quickly and affordably if these two payment systems were linked. Individuals in both countries will be able to send money in real-time via QR-code based or simply by entering mobile numbers linked to the bank account.
“The linking of fintech services between India and Singapore will take the technology to a new level,” PM Modi said at the launch event.
“It will provide a low-cost real-time platform for remittance transfers to people in both countries,” he added.
The launch event was also overseen by Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the nation’s top financial authority, and Shaktikanta Das, governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
India has emerged as one of the most rapidly expanding fintech innovation ecosystems, and the PM Modi-led administration has played a key role in accelerating the internationalisation of India’s digital payment infrastructure.
Prime Minister Modi has placed a strong emphasis on making sure that other nations also benefit from UPI, not only India. The rapid and inexpensive money transfers from Singapore to India and vice versa made possible by this agreement will also benefit Indian expats in Singapore, particularly migrant workers and students.
Separately, the Reserve Bank of India advocated allowing all international visitors to India to utilise UPI for their merchant payments while they are in the nation, taking into account the system’s popularity.
In India, the UPI payments system has grown incredibly popular for retail digital payments, and usage is growing quickly.
The announcement was made on February 8 by the RBI governor while he was considering the conclusions of the three-day monetary policy committee meeting.
