India, Singapore to link mobile payment systems

Illustrative image (Photo: Internet)

Hanoi (VNA) – The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on September 14 announced a project to link their respective fast payment systems to facilitate cross-border money transfer with low cost.

India uses Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as a fast payment method while Singapore uses the PayNow system. The linkage is target to be operationalised by July next year.

It will be a “milestone in the development of infrastructure for cross-border payment,” the RBI said in a press statement.

The UPI-PayNow linkage will enable users of each system to make instant, low-cost fund transfers on a reciprocal basis without a need to get onboarded onto the other payment system, it said.

UPI supports payments between individuals and between individuals and organisations. It is India's main payment platform and recorded more than 3 billion transactions for the second straight month in August. UPI was launched in 2016 and has seen tremendous growth during the COVID-19 outbreak.

PayNow facilitates peer-to-peer fund transfers, allowing customers to instantly send and receive money from one bank account or e-wallet to another bank account or e-wallet in Singpore via their mobile numbers./.