India and Singapore on Tuesday signed an agreement to link their real-time payments systems. The integration of India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) with Singapore’s PayNow will allow residents of the two countries to instantly transfer money to each other.
Backed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), this initiative is expected to reduce the cost and inefficiencies of remittances between both countries.
“The PayNow-UPI linkage will offer cheaper, faster, and safer cross-border retail payments and remittances, for businesses and individuals alike, directly between bank accounts,” Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Tuesday.
His Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, citing experts, said: “Digital wallet transactions are going to overtake cash transactions in India soon.”
A new milestone in India-Singapore relations as we link real-time digital payments systems. ?? ?? https://t.co/SubBSNyMO8
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 21, 2023
As India’s policymakers try to transition India to a less-cash economy, the adoption of digital payments has been rising. With the mushrooming of mobile wallets, QR-based apps and the UPI, the value of digital transactions leapfrogged from Rs293 crore in March 2020 to Rs799 crore by March 2022, show RBI data.
