NRIs from 10 countries can soon make payments through UPI

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Non-resident Indians (NRIs) from at least ten countries will soon be allowed to make payments using United Payments Interface (UPI) without an Indian mobile number. Soon, NRIs from more countries too will be able to do this, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said.

The ten countries are Singapore, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, USA, Saudi Arabia, UAE and the United Kingdom.  The NPCI, which operates the UPI platform, said, "To begin with, we shall be enabling transaction from mobile numbers having the country code of (10 nations)... and shall extend for other country codes in near future...".

The UPI ecosystem has been instructed to allow these users with non-resident account types such as non-resident external (NRE) and non-resident ordinary (NRO) with international mobile numbers to transact through UPI, the NPCI said.

Facility by April 30

In a circular issued by the NPCI, UPI participants have been asked to put in place a mechanism by April 30 under which non-residents having NRE/NRO accounts will be allowed to transfer funds using their international mobile numbers.

Also, the member banks will have to ensure that these accounts are only allowed as per extant Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) regulations and adhere to the guidelines issued by the concerned regulatory departments of RBI from time to time, the NPCI circular said.

NPCI said all necessary anti-money laundering or combating of financing of terrorism checks and compliance validation as per the rules need to be ensured while rolling out this fciity.

Goodnews for NRIs

Payments Council of India Chairman Vishwas Patel said the major convenience factor would be in the form of 'payment/money transfer convenience' for NRIs when they visit India.

Sarvatra Technologies Founder MD Mandar Agashe said all these years, NRIs couldn't access the UPI network since SIM binding, which is an important security feature of UPI, was available only to Indian SIM card phones.

"NRIs will just need to link their NRE and NRO accounts linked to their international SIM to UPI and use it like any other Indian UPI user for merchant payment as well as peer-to-peer payments," Agashe said.

The NPCI said that it had been receiving requests from the UPI ecosystem as well as customers to allow non-resident accounts to transact through UPI.