The Reserve Bank of India is advancing cross-border collaboration in digital payments through multiple initiatives, including linking India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) with other countries' fast-payment systems, according to Governor Sanjay Malhotra.
This will enable merchant payments abroad via UPI QR codes, and support partner nations in deploying UPI-like sovereign payment platforms, he added.
Malhotra was speaking earlier this week at the High-Level Dialogue on Forging Economic Resilience through Digital Public Platforms in Washington, DC.
When it comes to linking UPI with other fast-payment systems, the India-Singapore (UPI-PayNow) linkage is live, the governor said, adding that work with several other countries, bilaterally and multilaterally, was underway.
Cross-border merchant payments are live in a few countries, with efforts on to enable such payments in additional markets, he said.
"India is an excellent example of how digital public platforms (DPPs) can impart tangible economic benefits and materially improve the lives of our citizens," said Malhotra, adding that India's DPPs constituted a well-structured, multilayered system of interconnected digital building blocks, including digital identity through Aadhaar, instant payment systems via UPI, and secure data sharing through the Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture.
"For us, the guiding principle has been to build such platforms in the public sector as a public good with suitable guardrails, and without a profit motive. Public and private-sector entities can then leverage these platforms to develop applications across credit, health, social protection, agriculture, and several other domains."
Malhotra also highlighted initiatives taken by India to build DPPs.
Aadhaar, the unique identity platform, has over 1.3 billion users. Using this identity platform, over 566 million bank accounts have been opened, and 316 million of these belong to women. It has enabled direct benefit transfer, bypassing cash-based subsidy distribution and crediting subsidies. Over $500 billion has been transferred directly to beneficiaries, significantly reducing fraud and leakage.
-- Subrata Panda, Business Standard
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