New Delhi: Taking the massive success of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) beyond the borders of the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Singapore counterpart Lee Hsien Loong would launch cross-border connectivity between the UPI of India and PayNow of
Singapore on Tuesday (February 21, 2023) via video conferencing.

The launch will be done by Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Shaktikanta Das and Managing Director, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Ravi Menon, Ravi Menon. India has emerged as one of the fastest-growing ecosystems for fintech innovation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visionary leadership has been instrumental in driving globalisation of India’s best-in-class digital payment infrastructure. A key emphasis of the Prime Minister has been on ensuring that the benefits of UPI are not limited to India only, but other countries too can benefit from it.

The linkage of these two payment systems would enable residents of both countries in faster and cost-efficient transfer of cross-border remittances. It will also help the Indian diaspora in Singapore, especially migrant workers and students through instantaneous and low
cost transfer of money from Singapore to India and vice-versa.

India is already celebrating 'Digital Payments Utsav' - an extraordinary campaign that will showcase the country's journey of digital transformation.

A series of events and initiatives would be held from February 9 to October 9, 2023. The focus of the campaign will be on promoting digital payments in the country, especially in the cities of Lucknow, Pune, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, as part of the G20 Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG) event.

Through several important initiatives, the Government of India is committed to expanding digital transactions in the Indian economy, and thereby enhancing the quality and strength of the financial sector, as well as ease of living for citizens.

Digital payment transactions have significantly increased as a result of coordinated efforts of the Government as a whole, along with all stakeholders concerned, from 2,071 crore transactions in FY 2017-18 to 8,840 crore transactions in FY 2021-22 (Source: RBI, NPCI and banks).

During last five years, various modes of digital payments, including Bharat Interface for Money-Unified Payments Interface (BHIM-UPI), Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), and National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) have registered substantial growth and have transformed the digital payment ecosystem by increasing person-to-person (P2P) as well as person-to-merchant (P2M) payments.

BHIM UPI has emerged as the preferred payment mode of the citizens and has recorded 803.6 crore digital payment transactions with the value of Rs 12.98 lakh crore in January 2023. /BI/