- The UPI of India gets linked to Singapore’s PayNow payments system.
- (UPI) is India’s mobile-based fast payment system, and PayNow is a fast payment system in Singapore.
- The RBI Governor and the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Managing Director launched the new linkage.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong witnessed the event.
- The UPI-PayNow linkage will enable users of each of the two fast payment systems to make instant, low-cost fund transfers on a reciprocal basis.
- Of the total inward remittances to India in 2020-21, the share of Singapore stood at 5.7 per cent, according to the RBI.
The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) of India gets linked to Singapore’s PayNow payments system in presence of PM Narendra Modi and his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong. The linkage will enable residents of both countries to send cross-border remittances more quickly and cheaply. “A new milestone in India-Singapore relations as we link real-time digital payments systems,” PM said.
This linkage will facilitate the faster, more efficient and transparent cross-border transactions relating to trade, travel and remittances between the two countries.
India’s real-time retail payment system Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which has allowed for quick digital payments through apps like BharatPe and Paytm, and its equivalent network in Singapore called PayNow, were integrated to enable faster remittances between the two countries at a competitive rate.
Reserve Bank of India’s Governor Shaktikanta Das and the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Managing Director Ravi Menon launched the new linkage, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is India’s mobile-based fast payment system, which facilitates customers to make round-the-clock payments instantly, using a Virtual Payment Address (VPA) created by the customer. It supports both Person-to-Person (P2P) and Person-to-Merchant (P2M) payments and it also enables a user to send or receive money.
PayNow is a fast payment system in Singapore. It enables peer-to-peer funds transfer service in Singapore. It allows users to send and receive instant funds by using just their mobile number, Singapore National Registration Identity Card (NRIC)/Foreign Identification Number (FIN), or VPA.
The UPI-PayNow linkage will enable users of each of the two fast payment systems to make instant, low-cost fund transfers on a reciprocal basis without a need to get on board the other payment system.
It will also help the Indian diaspora in Singapore, especially migrant workers and students, through the instantaneous and low-cost transfer of money from Singapore to India and vice-versa. Of the total inward remittances to India in 2020-21, the share of Singapore stood at 5.7 per cent, according to the RBI Remittance Survey, 2021.
