New Delhi: AliPay+ could soon be enabled in India for cross-border digital payments, according to reports.
The government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are reportedly in discussions with Ant International to link Alipay+ with India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), allowing Indian users to make payments abroad at merchants connected to the Alipay+ network.
The move is aimed at easing overseas payments for Indian tourists through UPI-based transactions.
Any such integration would mark a significant development, given India’s earlier crackdown on Chinese-origin apps. In November 2020, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology blocked over 40 additional Chinese apps, including Alipay Cashier and AliExpress, under Section 69A of the IT Act.
This followed earlier bans on 59 apps in June 2020 and 118 more in August that year, with the government citing concerns related to national security and public order.
China and India today dominate global digital payments through different models. China processes the highest volume of digital payments worldwide, largely via Alipay and WeChat Pay, while India leads in real-time payments through UPI.
While China’s ecosystem evolved through private platforms integrated into commerce and messaging, India’s payments infrastructure was built by the government.
Despite low entry barriers, India’s UPI market is dominated by Google Pay and PhonePe, which together account for nearly 80 per cent of transactions, highlighting similarities in market concentration across both countries despite differing governance approaches.
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