NRIs of these 10 countries will soon be able to make UPI payments

NRIs having NRE (Non-Resident External) or NRO (Non-Resident Ordinary) accounts in 10 countries can use UPI services for transactions using their international mobile numbers.

NPCI said it is receiving requests to allow non-residents to use international mobile numbers for transactions in UPI.

Accordingly, NPCI has given participating banks time till April 30 to comply with the instructions under which non-residents having NRE/NRO accounts will be allowed to transfer funds using their international mobile numbers.

Which are these 10 countries?

Initially, NPCI will enable transactions from mobile numbers having country codes of Singapore, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, USA, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom with current home country code. ,

NPCI, which operates the UPI platform, said: “Initially, we will enable transactions from mobile numbers having country codes of (10 countries)… and will expand to other country codes in the near future.. .

This facility may be extended to other country codes in future.

The only condition is that the participating banks should ensure that such accounts are permitted as per the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) regulations, following the guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) from time to time.

In addition, all necessary anti-money laundering or terrorism financing checks and compliance verification as per regulations should be ensured by the remitting and beneficiary banks.

An NRE account helps NRIs to transfer foreign earnings to India, while an NRO account helps them manage income earned in India.

Officials said the development would help international students, families living abroad and local businesses.

Payments Council of India Chairman Vishwas Patel said that the major convenience factor for NRIs coming to India would be in the form of ‘payment/money transfer facility’.

Mandar Agashe, MD, Sarvatra Technologies, said that all these years NRIs could not access the UPI network because SIM binding, which is an important security feature of UPI, was available only for Indian SIM card phones.

Agashe said, “NRIs simply need to link their NRE and NRO accounts to UPI by linking their international SIM and use it like any other Indian UPI user for merchant payments as well as peer-to-peer payments Will happen.”

All about UPI

UPI, an instant real-time payment system, is now processing more peer-to-merchant (P2M) transactions than peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions in terms of volume. Transaction is done through mobile in easy steps. Also, no charges are applicable for UPI transactions.

UPI was earlier mostly used for P2P transactions. However, this trend has reversed since the Covid-related restrictions were eased in the last two years. Now, it is the most preferred payment mode for P2M transactions.

The low-cost medium of cashless transactions is gaining traction month-on-month and 381 banks are active on it.

There has been a huge jump in UPI payments in just six years. UPI transactions touch record high 12.82 lakh crore in December 2022.

In November last year, there was a transaction of about 730.9 crores. 11.90 lakh crore was done through UPI.