India's UPI Platform Now In Nepal, Becomes First Foreign Country To Do So

The real-time payment infrastructure will help catalyze the process of financial inclusion in Nepal and will also create more opportunities for businesses, NPCI said

Nepal To Become First Country To Deploy India's UPI Platform

New Delhi: Nepal will become the first foreign country to adopt India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system paving the way for transforming the digital economy of the country.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Thursday announced that the neighboring country will implement the payment system in the country.

The international arm of NPCI, NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL) has joined hands with Gateway Payments Service (GPS) and Manam Infotech to provide the services in Nepal, according to PTI.

In a statement, NPCI said: "Nepal shall be the first country outside of India to adopt UPI as the payments platform driving the digitalization of cash transactions and furthering the vision and objectives of the Nepal Government and Nepal Rastra Bank as the Central bank."

Gateway Payments Service is the authorised payment system operator in Nepal and Manam Infotech will deploy Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in that country.

What is the aim of this collaboration?

It is expected to serve the larger digital public good in Nepal and bolster interoperable real-time person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions in the neighbouring country.

The system will enable the last-mile consumers in Nepal to reap the benefits of an open interoperable payments system driving immediate payment transfers between bank accounts and merchant payments in real-time.

The move will allow for real-time cross-border P2P remittances between Nepal and India and UPI service has created a significant positive impact in India in terms of the country's digital payment transformation, said Rajesh Prasad Manandhar, CEO, GPS.

The real-time payment infrastructure will help catalyze the process of financial inclusion in Nepal and will also create more opportunities for businesses, NPCI said.

Citing that UPI enabled 3,900 crore financial transactions valuing $940 billion, which is equivalent to approximately 31 percent of India's GDP, Manandhar told PTI, "we expect UPI in Nepal would play a pivotal role in transforming the digital economy of the country and dreams of building a less-cash society."

Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NIPL said, "At NIPL, we are committed to transforming payments by taking our robust payments solutions to global markets and collaborating with local payment system operators. We are confident that this initiative will stand as a testimony to NIPL's technological capabilities and vision of scaling our unique offerings globally."

(With PTI inputs)