After the wide acceptance of UPI (Unified Payments Interface) in India, now the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is planning to take it global. In 2016, UPI was launched in India. It made the transactions from one bank to another quick, easy and comfortable for the banking customers. The acceptance of UPI in India was very quick compared to any payment method in the world.
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In 2021, after 5 successful years of UPI usage by around 1 billion people in India, the NPCI is thinking to launch it worldwide starting with UAE and Singapore. UAE has a large population of Indian expats. A good number of Indian tourists visiting the UAE and Singapore every year. Having UPI as one of the payment methods will make it easy for tourists to make payments comfortably.
UPI works with every bank account and is accepted by every merchant as well. This is one key factor that made it quickly acceptable to everyone. According to NPCI in August 2021, UPI services are now available in the UAE. Previously, the UAE and Singapore have accepted the RuPay card which was introduced by NPCI.
As UPI payments are accepted in the UAE region, Indians travelling abroad frequently can make hassle-free payments via UPI similar to debit cards or credit cards payments. UPI usage abroad will indeed be a convenient payment for Indian tourists.
NPCI has partnered with the well-known Mashreq bank in the UAE to provide UPI services available for Indian tourists who visit the UAE. Indians visiting UAE can now use UPI for payments at stores easily.