MAS & RBI will link their real time payment systems by July 2022.
Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today announced their plans to link Singapore’s PayNow and India’s Unified Interface Payments (UPI) real-time payment systems by July 2022.
The PayNow-UPI linkage will enable users to make instant cash transfer between Singapore and India. Fund transfers from India to Singapore can be done using mobile phone numbers, and from Singapore to India using UPI virtual payment addresses.
The linkage will provide for increased volumes of remittance traffic, multi-entity participation, automation of capital control rules, and enriched message formats to accommodate future innovation by linkage participants.
The connectivity between PayNow and UPI 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, MAS said in a release.
The PayNow-UPI linkage builds upon the earlier efforts of NETS and NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) to foster cross-border interoperability of card and QR payments, and will further anchor the substantial trade, travel and remittance flows between the two countries, it added.
Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer of MAS, said, “By reducing the cost and inefficiencies of remittances between Singapore and India, the PayNow-UPI linkage will directly benefit individuals and businesses in Singapore and India that greatly rely on this mode of payment. Given that PayNow and UPI are integral components of their respective national digital infrastructures, the link between the two systems also paves the way for establishing more comprehensive digital connectivity and interoperability between the two countries.”
