What is in news : The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Reserve Bank of India have announced their intent to link Singapore’s PayNow and India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) real-time payment systems by July 2022.

Aim : The goal is to provide instantaneous, low-cost fund transfers directly from one bank account to another between the two countries.

About UPI: It is a mobile-based fast payment system, facilitating the customers to make round the clock payments instantly by using a Virtual Payment Address (VPA). VPA is created by the customer. This system eliminates the risk of sharing bank account details by remitter. This mechanism supports Person-to-Person (P2P) as well as Person-to-Merchant (P2M) payments and enables users to send or receive money.

About PayNow: It is the fast payment system of Singapore, enabling peer-to-peer funds transfer service. It is available for retail customers with the help of participating banks & Non-Bank Financial Institutions (NFIs) in Singapore. It provides the users to send and receive instant funds from one bank or e-wallet account to another by using their mobile number, Singapore NRIC/FIN, or VPA.