India and neighbour Sri Lanka are working on collaborating on digital payments. A linkage between India's near ubiquitous Unified Payments Interface and the island nation's Lanka Pay is in the works, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.
The prime minister was speaking at a ceremony to flag off a ferry service between Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu and Kankesanthurai in Sri Lanka, when he said, "Our vision for connectivity goes beyond the transport sector."
India and Sri Lanka collaborate closely in a wide range of areas such as FinTech and energy. Digital payments have become a mass movement and a way of life in India due to UPI, he said
UPI, which was launched in April 2016, has become the predominant mode of payment in the country. It is expected to account for 90% share of retail digital transactions volume in the next five years, up from 75.6 percent in FY23, according to the Reserve Bank of India's June 2023 bulletin, which is based on PwC data.
At the press conference to announce the outcome of the monetary policy committee's meeting on Aug. 10, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had said that the internationalisation of the UPI is being worked on. A number of countries in Europe as well as Japan have evinced interest, he said.
So far, India has linked its UPI with Singapore and has struck an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to connect the UPI with the Integrated Payment Platform there.
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