The integration of India’s Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and Singapore’s PayNow real-time payment systems is expected to go live soon. The PayNow-UPI linkage will enable users make instant, low-cost fund transfers directly from one bank account to another, between Singapore and India.

When implemented, it is expected to bring down the cost of remittance, said Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore. “Integration of UPI and Singapore’s PayNow is ready and is waiting for launch,” he told newspersons on the sidelines of the G20 First Working Group meet on global partnership for financial inclusion here on Monday.

The integration will enable fund transfers to be made from India to Singapore using mobile phone numbers and from Singapore to India using UPI virtual payment addresses (VPA). The linkage will also help provide for increased volumes of remittance traffic, multi-entity participation and automation of capital control rules, among others.

The move is a major milestone in the development of next-generation infrastructure for cross-border payments between Singapore and India, and is closely aligned with the G20’s financial inclusion priorities of driving faster, cheaper and more transparent cross-border payments, he said.

According to Pramod Varma, CTO, EkStep Foundation, Chief Architect Aadhaar & India Stack, similar integration and interoperability is also likely to happen with Dubai and a few other countries soon.

Global Finternet

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) must harness and align three key pillars — creating a level playing ground, driving innovation and competitiveness and productivity gains. It is now time to create a global Finternet led by G20 members which will have shared open protocols and policies allowing real time financial networks across various countries to be globally interoperable, Varma said.

However, the biggest issue in such integration is the legal hurdles and data sharing regulations, Mohanty said. “Practical and strategic understanding is needed (to integrate systems from different countries).,” he said.

Other partnerships

According to Dilip Asbe, MD & CEO, National Payment Corporation of India, 3-4 countries have expressed their intent for adopting UPI and India will provide the technical know-how, software and handholding support to these countries. “MoUs will be signed with these countries for adopting UPI,” he said. It might take 2-3 years for the implementation.

NPCI has been trying to bring down the cost for UPI platform to below $1 million for greater adoption, particularly among low income countries, he said.

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