UPI Pay Linkages

 What is in the News ?

• India’s real-time retail payment system Unified Payments Interface (UPI) UPI Pay Linkages , which has allowed for quick digital payments through apps like Bharat Pe and Paytm, and its equivalent network in Singapore called Pay Now, were integrated today to enable faster remittances between the two countries at a competitive rate.
• Reserve Bank of India’s Governor Shaktikanta Das and the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Managing Director Ravi Menon launched the new linkage, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

About this Move

• As part of an agreement, India’s UPI Pay Linkages will be linked to Singapore’s Pay Now.
• Singapore is the first country with which cross border Person to Person (P2P) payment facility has been launched.
• Acceptance of UPI payments through QR codes is already available in selected merchant outlets in Singapore.
• Of the total inward remittances to India in 2020-21, the share of Singapore stood at 5.7 per cent.

 Benefits

• This will help the Indian diaspora in Singapore, especially migrant workers/students instantaneous and low-cost transfer of money from Singapore to India and vice-versa.
• It eliminates the risk of sharing bank account details by the remitter. UPI supports both Person-to-Person (P2P) and Person-to-Merchant (P2M) payments and it also enables a user to send or receive money.
• It closely aligns with the G20’s financial inclusion priorities of driving faster, cheaper and more transparent cross-border payments.

Practice Questions for Prelims

With reference to the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), consider the following statements:
1. It is a payment system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
2. It is regulated by the Ministry of Finance.
3. It is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features.

Select the correct statement/s:
a) 1 and 3 only
b) 2 and 3 only
c) 1 and 2 only
d) 1,2 and 3

Ans. a)

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