Paytm To Roll Out 'UPI International', Aims Catering Indian Diaspora

Paytm intends to roll out the 'UPI International' feature on its app in the near future. Bhavesh Gupta, board member of Paytm Payments Bank, stated during the company's live social media session that the fintech giant would soon introduce UPI International.

While the NPCI has began merchant acquisition for UPI in Singapore, Gupta expects it to begin soon other nations with a strong Indian diaspora or a high number of Indian visitors. “Very soon, we will also launch this service on the Paytm app. But we believe that it is still a bit early for this service to be prioritsed over some other features which consumers want,” Gupta said.

PhonePe, Paytm's competitor, introduced UPI International into its app early this year, allowing users to make payments in international currencies directly from their bank accounts. Paytm also launched UPI Lite and the RuPay credit card service on UPI for iOS during the event on Tuesday. It also introduced a number of new features, including the ability for users to use an alternate UPI ID to conceal their mobile phone numbers.

Paytm stated during the live session that it had gained 6 million consumers in three months since the debut of UPI Lite on the app in February. PhonePe has released the UPI Lite feature, which allows customers to make low-value transfers of less than Rs 200 from their UPI Lite account without entering a pin.

The NPCI has established a subsidiary, NPCI International, to conduct and coordinate projects with international participants. According to Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, the government is in negotiations with as many as 30 countries around the world about potentially installing the payments architecture in their countries.

Aside from India, Nepal became the first country in the world to embrace UPI in February 2022. The digital-payments service has been introduced in a number of Middle Eastern nations to serve the vast Indian diaspora that lives and works there.

Cross-border connectivity between UPI and Singapore's PayNow was also completed in February this year to facilitate cross-border payments.

According to NPCI data, PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm accounted for 94 per cent of all UPI transactions performed in March 2023. During the month, Paytm processed 128.84 crore transactions totaling Rs 1.54 lakh crore.