On 21 February 2023, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (“MAS“) and the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI“) launched a safe, simple, and cost-effective way to make cross-border fund transfers between Singapore and India. The tie-up between Singapore’s PayNow and India’s Unified Payments Interface (“UPI“) enables customers of participating financial institutions in Singapore and India to send and receive funds between bank accounts or e-wallets across the two countries in real-time by using mobile phone number, UPI identity, or Virtual Payment Address (VPA).
The tie-up between PayNow-UPI is the world’s first real-time payment systems linkage to use a scalable cloud-based infrastructure which can accommodate future increases in the volume of remittance traffic. It is also the first linkage to feature a non-bank financial institution as a participant.
The service will be made available to Singapore customers of DBS Bank and Liquid Group under a phased approach. Indian customers of all participating Indian banks will be able to receive funds through the service from the onset. The sending of funds is limited to customers of four Indian banks at the time of launch and this scope will be gradually expanded.
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