The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has granted non-residents from countries such as the US, Canada, and UAE the ability to digitally transfer funds via the UPI platform from their NRE/NRO accounts. A circular from NPCI dated 10th January stated that this decision was made in response to requests for allowing non-residents to use international mobile numbers for transactions on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
What is UPI?
UPI (Unified Payments Interface) is a real-time payment system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) that facilitates inter-bank transactions by instantly transferring funds between two bank accounts on a mobile platform.
UPI is currently only available for use in India and allows instant money transfers between any two parties’ bank accounts. Other countries have developed similar systems for real-time mobile-based payment.
The NPCI has instructed UPI participants to establish a system by April 30 that enables non-residents with NRE/NRO accounts to transfer funds using their international mobile numbers.
Initially, this service will be available to non-residents in 10 countries:
- Singapore
- Australia
- Canada
- Hong Kong
- Oman
- Qatar
- USA
- Saudi Arabia
- UAE
- United Kingdom
Non-resident Indians (NRIs) will be able to use UPI for merchant payments and peer-to-peer transactions by simply linking their NRE and NRO accounts, associated with their international SIM, to UPI, just like any other Indian UPI user.
Some interesting facts about UPI:
UPI was launched in India in 2016, and since its introduction, it has become a popular and widely used system for digital transactions in the country. It is built on top of the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) and is governed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
In recent years, the number of transactions conducted via UPI has grown significantly, with data from the NPCI indicating that the volume of transactions on the UPI platform exceeded 2.5 billion in December 2020.
