RBI unveils UPI payments facility for international travellers in India

The Reserve Bank of India has announced that all international travellers visiting India will be able to make local payments using Unified Payments Interface (UPI) while they are in the country. The facility has been effective from today itself, the central bank said in a statement.

According to the statement, the facility is available to the travellers from G-20 nations at select international airports of New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

The G20 comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, the US, and the European Union (EU).

The travellers will be issued prepaid payment instruments (PPI) wallets which will be linked to UPI for making payments.

The delegates from G20 nations can also avail this UPI facility at meeting venues. The UPI-linked wallets will be issued by private lenders ICICI Bank, IDFC First Bank along with two non-bank PPI issuers named Pine Labs Private Limited and Transcorp International Limited.

“Travellers visiting India can now experience the convenience of UPI payments at over five crore merchant outlets across India, that accept QR Code-based UPI payments”, the RBI statement read.

The central bank’s move comes on a day when India and Singapore unveiled the linking of their real-time digital payments systems. The move is aimed at facilitating cheaper and safer cross-border remittances and benefit members of the Indian diaspora in Singapore.

Five years after the idea was conceived, the linking of Singapore’s PayNow and India’s UPI is the first cross-border person-to-person payments link for India and second for the city state.