NPCI International Payments Limited(NPIL) in partnership with Lyra, a French leader in securing e- commerce and proximity payments, has announced the acceptance of Unified Payment Interface(UPI) payment method in France starting with the Eiffel Tower. Indian tourists can now book their tickets to the Eiffel Tower online using UPI.
This announcement was made official in Paris at an event organized by the Indian Embassy in France to celebrate the Republic Day of India. They state that this particular development is significant considering Indian tourists rank as the second largest International visitors group to the Eiffel Tower. It added, with Eiffel tower being the first merchant to accept UPI payments, the service be soon extended to various tourism and retail merchants as well. This would make availability of numerous opportunities for the merchants operating in tourism and in the retail sectors in France and Europe significantly easier for Indians to make secure online payments remotely for their tour and stay in France.
Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NIPL, said, “At NIPL, our ambition is to enable acceptance of NPCI’s payment solutions in international markets and create a truly interoperable global payment system. We aim at actively collaborating with financial institutions worldwide to establish partnerships and provide consumers with convenient and secure cross- border payment solutions. Through this strategic partnership with Lyra, we have taken another step forward towards this goal.”
Christophe Mariette, Commercial Director of Lyra France, said, “It is a great pride to have the trust of the Indian Government and NIPL to launch UPI in Europe. We have been present in India for 17 years, and this partnership confirms the strength of our collaboration with this vast country. For the players in French and European tourism ecosystem, this partnership represents a major advancement and the promise of new business opportunities to come.”
NPCI said with over 380 Million users, UPI as a payment method has made its presence in India and in January 2024 alone, 12.2 billion transactions were recorded.
