UPI-PayNow started a new chapter of cross-border fintech connectivity: PM Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the UPI-PayNow link between India and Singapore has started a new chapter of cross-border fintech connectivity.
Modi and his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong witnessed the launch of the link of cross-border connectivity between the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in India and PayNow in Singapore.
“The launch of the UPI-PayNow link (between India and Singapore) is a gift to the citizens of the two countries, which they have been eagerly waiting for. I congratulate the people of both India and Singapore for this,” Modi said during the launch, according to news agency ANI.
“In today’s time, technology connects us to each other in several ways. Fintech is a sector that connects people to each other. Normally it is limited within the borders of one country. But today’s launch has started a new chapter of cross-border Fintech connectivity,” Modi added at the virtual launch.
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Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das and Ravi Menon, Managing Director, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) inaugurated the link through video conferencing on Tuesday.
Initially, State Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, Indian Bank and ICICI Bank will facilitate both deposits and withdrawals, while Axis Bank and DBS India will facilitate inward remittances.
For Singapore users, the service will be made available through DBS-Singapore and Liquid Group (a non-bank financial institution). More banks will be included in the link over time
The PayNow-UPI link will enable users to make instant, low-cost money transfers directly from one bank account to another between Singapore and India. Once implemented, money transfers can be made from India to Singapore using mobile phone numbers, and from Singapore to India using UPI Virtual Payment Addresses (VPAs), a Singapore press release said.
To begin with, an Indian user can pay up to Rs 60,000 in a day (equivalent to around SGD 1,000)
It will also help the Indian diaspora in Singapore, particularly migrant workers and students, through instant and affordable remittance of money from Singapore to India and vice versa, the statement said.
In September 2021, MAS and RBI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to link Singapore’s PayNow and India’s UPI real-time payment systems.
MAS Chief Fintech Officer Sopnendu Mohanty, on the sidelines of the G20 First Working Group’s meeting on financial inclusion in Kolkata, said the implementation of the project will reduce the cost of sending remittances by as much as 10 percent. He also added that data sharing regulations, cost barriers to adoption and legal hurdles are bigger than technological challenges.
Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said last week that India has signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with 13 countries that want to adopt UPI for digital payments.
The global partnerships for UPI adoption have come through as NIPL (NPCI International Payments Limited). NIPL was incorporated in April 2020 as a wholly owned subsidiary of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), dedicated to the distribution of RuPay and UPI outside India.
