New Delhi: Google India Digital Services has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NPCI International Payments, a subsidiary of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), to extend the reach of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) beyond India.
The MoU outlines three primary objectives:
- To enhance the accessibility of UPI payments for travellers outside India, facilitating seamless transactions abroad.
- To assist other countries in establishing UPI-like digital payment systems.
- To streamline cross-border financial exchanges by leveraging the UPI infrastructure to simplify the remittance process between countries.
Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NPCI International Payments Limited, said that the partnership with Google Pay will not only benefit Indian travellers but also allow the extension of digital payment expertise to other countries.
This initiative enables foreign merchants to access Indian consumers, eliminating the sole reliance on foreign currency, credit cards, or forex cards for digital payments.
Deeksha Kaushal, Director of Partnerships at Google Pay India, stated that the collaboration with NPCI International is another step towards achieving this goal.
NPCI International, the international arm of NPCI, focuses on deploying UPI and the RuPay card payments system outside India. In the previous year, NPCI facilitated transactions from mobile numbers in ten countries, including Singapore, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.
This feature allows Non-resident account types with international mobile numbers to transact using UPI. Additionally, PhonePe expanded UPI support in UAE, Singapore, Mauritius, Nepal, and Bhutan, incorporating local QR codes.
