Why in news?

Expanding further outside India, the indigenously developed real-time payments solution the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will foray into the United Kingdom market starting with QR code-based transactions.

Highlights:

• The NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL) has forged a partnership with payments solutions provider PayXpert to internationalise the acceptance of its payment solutions in the U.K.
• NIPL is the wholly-owned subsidiary of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which developed the world’s largest real-time payment solution the UPI and the RuPay card scheme.
• This collaboration will make the Indian payment solutions available in the U.K. on all PayXpert’s android point-of-sale (POS) devices for in-store payments, starting with UPI-based QR code payments and later integrating the possibility for RuPay card payments.
• the foray of UPI and RuPay will open up a new field of opportunity for the company in the U.K. It will further strengthen the capability of company’s solution for U.K. merchants
• Counted as one of the most successful Real-Time Payments (RTP) systems globally, UPI clocked a volume of $940 billion (39 billion transactions) in 2021, equivalent to 31% of India’s GDP.

Which other country has adopted UPI?

• In July 2021, Bhutan became the first country to adopt Unified Payment Interface standards for NPCI’s QR deployment, and the only country to accept RuPay cards.
• Earlier in February this year, the UPI forayed into another neighbourhood country Nepal in a move aimed at bolstering real-time digital transactions.

RuPay

• RuPay is the domestically developed global card payment network in India with over 70 crore (700 million) cards issued to date.
• RuPay is the first-of-its-kind Global Card payment network from India, with wide acceptance at Shops, ATMs, and online.
• It is a highly secure network that protects against anti-phishing. The name, derived from the words ‘Rupee and ‘Payment’, emphasizes that it is India’s very own initiative for Card payments.

• RuPay fulfils RBI’s vision of initiating a ‘less cash’ economy. This could be achieved only by encouraging every Indian bank and financial institution to become tech-savvy and engage in offering electronic payments.