India talking to 8 more nations for UPI acceptability: Nagaraju

India is negotiating with about 7–8 countries, including in East Asia, to expand acceptance of its Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Financial Services Secretary M. Nagaraju said. UPI is already usable in eight countries, and India is integrating it into trade negotiations to boost fintech participation and leverage cost and scale advantages

New Delhi: India is talking to about eight countries, including those in East Asia, to make UPI payments acceptable, Financial Services Secretary M Nagaraju said on Friday.

Unified Payment Interface (UPI) is currently accepted in eight countries — Bhutan, Singapore, Qatar, Mauritius, Nepal, UAE, Sri Lanka and France. Acceptability of India’s digital payment network overseas enables Indian tourists to make UPI payments for transactions abroad.

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“We are now talking to about 7-8 countries, including many in East Asia, to have UPI transactions,” Nagaraju said at a conference on Harnessing AI and digital public infrastructure for Viksit Bharat.

Nagaraju also said that India is including a track on UPI in some of the trade negotiations with countries.

“Some of the trade negotiations we are doing with some of the countries now, we are trying to have a track on UPI so that the fintech industry which is deeply involved in UPI also have a foot in the financial sector where we have the cost, scale advantage and we want to leverage that advantage to the benefit of the country,” Nagaraju said.