The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has approved non-residents from 10 countries to digitally transfer funds using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform from NRE/NRO accounts. This facility will be available to non-residents in 10 countries namely Singapore, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, USA, Saudi Arabia, UAE and the United Kingdom.
While NRIs and PIOs can open Non-Resident (External) Rupee (NRE) bank accounts, Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) accounts can be opened by any person residing outside India for bonafide transactions in the rupee.
The NPCI has asked the UPI participants to put in place a mechanism by April under which non-residents having NRE/NRO accounts will be allowed to transfer funds using their international mobile numbers.
NPCI said, “To begin with, we shall be enabling transactions from mobile numbers having the country code of (10 nations) and shall extend for other country codes in near future”. Payments Council of India Chairman Vishwas Patel said the major convenience factor would be in the form of ‘payment/money transfer convenience’ for NRIs when they visit India.
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