The central government is pushing for expanding the global presence of UPI and RuPay. In this process, The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and NPCI International Payments (NIPL) have announced plans to extend the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to 20 countries by the FY29.
As per the vision under the Viksit Bharat 2047 plan, the Reserve Bank, along with NIPL will work towards taking UPI to 20 countries. The initiation timeline for this effort is 2024-25 and completion timeline of 2028-29. The RBI is further exploring the possibility of collaborating with countries in the European Union and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), as well as exploring multilateral linkages for the Fast Payment System (FPS).
Last year, in July, the RBI and the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) signed a MoU to connect payment infrastructures of respective banks. This agreement includes linking India’s UPI with UAE’s Instant Payment Platform (IPP) called Aani and associated card switches (RuPay switch and UAESWITCH).
In February 2024, RuPay cards and UPI connectivity between India and Mauritius was launched. This allows Indian travellers in Mauritius to pay merchants using UPI apps and vice versa for Mauritian travellers in India.
