NPCI International and Google Pay Partner to Expand UPI Globally

Google Pay, an online payment aggregator, will now provide UPI service to consumers travelling overseas, following PhonePe and Paytm.

To build the service, the digital payment company is collaborating with NPCI Payments International Limited (NPIL), a subsidiary of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

Users who are travelling overseas can use Google Pay UPI to make payments to foreign merchants in their home currency. As a result, there would be no need for foreign credit, debit, or forex cards.

Currently, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, USA, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom offer the facility.

Google Pay, also referred to as GPay, is set to become one of the applications and banks that facilitate peer-to-peer remittance services through UPI, thereby mitigating reliance on traditional money transfer routes. This is currently offered between Singapore and India.

Users of PayNow in Singapore and UPI in India will be able to send money securely and instantaneously between the two nations.

Users of the BHIM, PhonePe, and Paytm applications can also utilise this feature in addition to Google Pay. Additionally, this feature is offered by banks via their separate applications, including Axis Bank, DBS Bank India, ICICI Bank, Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, and State Bank of India. Many more institutions are anticipated to be added to the linkage soon.

Director of Partnerships at Google Pay India, Deeksha Kaushal, stated: “We are thrilled to assist NIPL in extending UPI’s reach into foreign markets. Under the regulator’s direction, Google Pay has been a proud and eager partner of the NPCI and the financial ecosystem; this partnership is a further step in our mission to make payments easy, secure, and convenient.

“We are also excited about enabling a seamless and more connected international remittance network by further expanding UPI’s cross-border interoperability feature,” said Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), in addition to this.

Furthermore Prior to this, the Australian government said that, as part of legislation slated to be brought to parliament, it will place digital payment services like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and others under the same regulatory jurisdiction as credit cards and other forms of payment.

Despite their explosive growth in popularity, digital wallets from companies like Apple, Google, and Tencent, the developer of WeChat, are not covered by Australian payments law.