Singapore, India Announce New Project to Link their Fast Payments Systems

Singapore's MAS and India's Central Bank (RBI) have announced a new project to link their respective fast payments systems PayNow and Unified Payments Interface (UPI). This linkage will help the users make instant low-cost money transfers from one bank account to another between Singapore and India.

This linkage will mean that people will be able to make fund transfers from Singapore to India using UPI virtual payment addresses (VPA) and India to Singapore using just mobile phone numbers.

MAS in its statement said, "The connectivity between PayNow and UPI is a major milestone in the development of next-generation infrastructure for cross-border payments between Singapore and India, and is closely aligned with the G20’s financial inclusion priorities of driving faster, cheaper and more transparent cross-border payments."

The UPI-PayNow linkage will build upon the earlier efforts of NETS and NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) to foster cross-border interoperability of payments using cards and QR codes, between Singapore and India. This project is expected to improve trade, travel, and remittance flows between the two countries.

Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer of MAS, said, "By reducing the cost and inefficiencies of remittances between Singapore and India, the PayNow-UPI linkage will directly benefit individuals and businesses in Singapore and India that greatly rely on this mode of payment. Given that PayNow and UPI are integral components of their respective national digital infrastructures, the link between the two systems also paves the way for establishing more comprehensive digital connectivity and interoperability between the two countries."