How India's UPI is now travelling places, in charts

livemint.com:

Last month, when delegates of the Group of 20 (G20) nations arrived in New Delhi, they were given the taste of one of India’s most successful creations: the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Travellers could make a one-time payment in their own currency to load a digital wallet, which could be used throughout their visit to pay merchants in rupees using the ubiquitous UPI QR codes. That was just one of the various ways UPI has gone global in recent years: the system is already accessible in some form or the other in close to two dozen countries.

Following UPI’s local success, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) set up an arm called NIPL (NPCI International Payments Limited) in 2020 to take the payments system outside the country. Since then, NIPL and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have entered into agreements with financial entities in over 30 nations to expand UPI-based transactions beyond India’s borders. In some cases, it is meant to aid remittances by NRIs, but in most, it is meant to help Indians make seamless payments while travelling abroad, without needing the traditional forex card or cash.

UPI’s globalization isn’t limited to Indians being able to use it abroad. NIPL has also signed agreements to transfer technology and help Nepal build a UPI platform of its own, while Japan is reportedly considering something similar with India’s help. UPI has made India a leader in digital payments, far ahead of advanced countries.

On most developmental and financial metrics, India falls behind on per-capita terms due to its high population. But it is close to the top on per-capita real-time transactions, ahead of the Netherlands and the UK. India conducts the most real-time payments (of which UPI is one type)