Nepal to become the first country to adopt India's UPI system
- Category
Economy
- Published
24th Feb, 2022
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Context
Nepal is set to be the first country to adopt India's UPI system, which will play a pivotal role in transforming the digital economy of the neighbouring country.
Key-highlights
- NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL), the international arm of NPCI, has joined hands with Gateway Payments Service (GPS) and Manam Infotech to provide the services in Nepal.
- GPS is the authorised payment system operatorin Nepal and Manam Infotech will deploy Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in that country.
- In June, 2021, Bhutan became the first country, in India’s immediate neighbourhood, to use the BHIM app for mobile-based payments and “to adopt UPI standards for its QR deployment”.
- BHIM UPI, the Indian government’s digital payment app, was launched in Bhutan.
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What is Unified Payments Interface (UPI)?
In 2021, UPI enabled 3,900 crore financial transactions valuing USD 940 billion, which is equivalent to approximately 31 per cent of India’s GDP.
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- UPI is amongst the most successful real-time payments (RTP) systems globally, providing – simplicity, safety, and security in P2P and P2M transactions in India.
- Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an immediate real-time payment system that helps in instantly transferring the funds between the two bank accounts through a mobile platform.
- Hence, UPI is a concept that allows multiple bank accounts to get into a single mobile application.
- This idea was developed by the National Payments Corporation of India and is controlled by the RBI and IBA (Indian Bank Association).
- NPCI is the firm that handles RuPay payments infrastructure, i.e. similar to Visa and MasterCard.
- It allows different banks to interconnect and transfer funds.
- Immediate Payments Service (IMPS) is also an initiative of NPCI. UPI is considered as the advanced version of IMPS.
- UPI service has created a significant positive impact in India in terms of the country’s digital payment transformation.
UPI ID & UPI PIN
- UPI ID: A UPI ID is a unique identification for a bank account that can be used to send and receive funds.
- UPI PIN: UPI PIN is a 4-digit personal identification number that must be entered to authorise the transfer of money via UPI. The PIN can be chosen by the account holder.
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Transact365 Brings Cross-Border Payments to India
- In January, U.K.-based FinTech Transact365 added cross-border payments for merchants to and from India to its suite of services through two local solutions: Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a real-time payments system that allows inter-bank, peer-to-peer (P2P) and person-to-merchant transactions through mobile devices; and NetBanking, which uses the Transact365 gateway and completes the transaction in real time using the local currency.
- Transact365 also launched local payment distribution, which allows merchants to pay their clients in India in real time with application programming interface (API) connectivity.
Significance of the development
- The collaboration will serve the larger digital public good in Nepal and bolster interoperable real-time person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions in the neighbouring country.
- This collaboration will enable the last-mile consumers in Nepal to reap the benefits of an open interoperable payments system driving immediate payment transfers between bank accounts and merchant payments in real-time.
- Nepal has a population of about 30 million (3 crore) with around 45 per cent banked.
- Mobile penetration of over 135 per cent with 65 per cent of the population using smartphones provides a bedrock for seamless replication of the digital revolution in India to be replicated in Nepal.
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