UPI, Singapore's PayNow integration soon: official at G20 meet

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The Monetary Authority of Singapore on Monday said integration of India's Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and equivalent network in Singapore, known as PayNow, will begin anytime soon, which in turn will reduce the remittance cost by 10 per cent.

There will be interoperability of the two digital payment networks, allowing seamless remittances between the two countries at a highly competitive rate.

"Integration of UPI and Singapore's PayNow with India is ready and waiting for launch," Singapore central bank's chief fintech officer Sopnendu Mohanty said at the G20 meeting on financial inclusion at Kolkata.

"As of now, remittance to India is at least 1 billion Singapore Dollars and India to Singapore will be 200-300 million Singapore Dollars," Mohanty said.

Pramod Verma, chief architect of Aadhaar & India Stack said similar interoperability will also happen with Dubai and a few other countries soon.

He said this integration will also help Indian tourists pay in Singapore using UPI. Singapore already has such a tie-up with Indonesia's PromPay to facilitate seamless cross-border transfers.

Mohanty expects that interoperability of such payment networks with India and Maylasia will happen almost simultaneously.

National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) MD & CEO Dilip Asbe said India is ready to offer UPI technologies and codes free of cost to help countries to build digital payment infrastructure.

Mohanty said apart from the cost barrier for adoption and legal hurdles, data-sharing regulations are greater than technology challenges.