Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) using Unified Payment Interface (UPI) will soon be able to transfer funds between their NRE (non-resident external) accounts and international numbers, according a circular issued by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) recently.
To start with, UPI will enable the transactions from mobile numbers of 10 countries along with the relevant domestic codes, states the circular. These nations are Singapore, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, USA, Saudi Arabia, UAE and UK.
Regulatory concerns
It is vital to note that non-resident accounts having international mobile numbers will be allowed to transact in UPI subject to FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act) regulations and anti-money laundering (AML) and CFT (Combating of Financing of Terrorism) provisions.
It is worth pointing out that the transactions with numbers from Singapore will soon start with integration between UPI and Singapore’s PayNow real-time payment system to go live soon.
Although this integration is expected to facilitate seamless and easy funds transfer between NRIs and the users from other countries, the regulatory and legal constraints are yet to be addressed.
“The biggest issue in such integration is the legal hurdles and data sharing regulations," said Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore.
All the members of NPCI have been advised to comply with these directives by April 30, 2023.
UPI is one of the most convenient ways to transfer money via smart phones. In 2022, the UPI network ended 2022 with a growth of 90 per cent in the volume of transactions and a 76 per cent rise in the value of transactions over the year-ago period.
Payment transactions via UPI rose 7.7 per cent month-on-month to a high of ₹12.8-lakh crore in December.
