India wishes to expand its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to Africa.
India is currently engaged in discussions with various African governments, including Namibia, Mozambique, and Kenya, as well as its fellow BRICS members, regarding the expansion of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to facilitate cross-border transactions.
The Indian government plans to expand Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to African countries through strategic partnerships with payment platforms. The initiative aims to address financial challenges like financial inclusion, rural economies, fintech innovation, and transparency. India aims to collaborate with these countries to create unique UPI versions and ensure a sovereign approach to their financial systems.
The Indian UPI, which debuted in April 2016, combines numerous bank accounts into a mobile app, combining banking services, allowing financial transfers, and allowing merchant payments. UPI 300 has become the main online transaction mechanism among Indians, with approximately one million users and 500 million merchants. Notably, NPCI has forged a connection with Singapore's PayNow system, enabling seamless cross-border transfers using PayNow Virtual Payment Addresses (VPA) and UPI.
This initiative marks India's first cross-border, real-time linkage and is a testament to Singapore's second such linkage. It relies on cloud-based infrastructure and includes participation from non-bank financial institutions, as acknowledged by Singapore's Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong. India's aim is to standardize the user experience for the approximately 30 million Indians living abroad, who collectively send about $100 billion annually. Currently, this process is fragmented, dependent on the region where the sender resides.
France, the United Arab Emirates, and Sri Lanka are among the countries promoting UPI technology. Six more members have joined the BRICS group, which includes India, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Modi highlighted India's remarkable achievements in digital transactions, ranging from street vendors to large shopping malls. India has emerged as a global leader in digital payments. He emphasized the role of technology in driving financial inclusion and mentioned that over $360 billion has been disbursed to beneficiaries through India's direct-benefit-transfer model.
India plans to leverage its ongoing presidency of the G20 forum to present its digital infrastructure model to other nations. The G20 comprises twenty of the world's largest economies and was established in 1999. In summary, India's efforts to expand its UPI system to Africa and its active engagement within the BRICS demonstrate its commitment to driving global adoption of this innovative payment technology and enhancing financial inclusion worldwide.
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