Google Pay, NPCI Sign Pact For Global Expansion Of UPI

Google Pay and India's National Payments Corp. signed a pact on Wednesday to further the reach of UPI beyond India.

Google India Digital Services Pvt. and NPCI International Payments Ltd., a unit of the NPCI, signed a memorandum of understanding with three key objectives:

• Broaden the use of UPI payments for travellers outside of India.

• Establish UPI-like digital payment systems in other countries.

• Ease the process of remittances between countries by utilising the UPI infrastructure.

The outlined objectives will help accelerate UPI's global acceptance, providing foreign merchants access to Indian customers who will no longer have to rely only on foreign currency and/or credit or forex cards for making digital payments and will have the option of using UPI-powered apps from India, including Google Pay, the two said in a joint statement. "This is in alignment with NPCI's endeavour to bolster India's position in the global digital payment landscape."

"This strategic partnership will not only simplify foreign transactions for Indian travellers but will also allow us to extend our knowledge and expertise of operating a successful digital payments ecosystem to other countries... With the success of UPI in a dynamic market like India, we are excited to further our vision to transform the digital payments landscape globally," said Ritesh Shukla, chief executive officer at NPCI International Payments.

Earlier this month, a cross-border linkage between Unified Payments Interface and Singapore's PayNow was established, meaning users of the major UPI apps such as BHIM, PhonePe and Paytm could receive remittances from Singapore by linking UPI.

Over the past year, India has also moved to offer more countries to join the India Stack, which is a set of indigenously built technologies that aid the delivery of public and welfare services. In India, digital public infrastructure is supported by the India Stack, which is a set of open applications that form the base for digital public goods such as UPI, Aadhaar, CoWIN, and DigiLocker, among others.