Singapore and India to Link Real-Time Payment Systems

The link will facilitate instant, low-cost fund transfers directly from one bank account to another between Singapore and India.

Singapore will be linking its national e-payments system PayNow to India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) by mind-2022, according to an announcement by the Monetary Authority of Singapore on Tuesday.

This means that users in Singapore will be able to make fund transfers to users in India using a UPI virtual payment address. Transfers from India to Singapore can be made using the user’s mobile phone number.

The linkage will provide for increased volumes of remittance traffic, multi-entity participation, automation of capital control rules, and enriched message formats to accommodate future innovation by linkage participants, the announcement said.

As the cost and inefficiencies of remittances between Singapore and India is expected to be substantially reduced, MAS said the link will further anchor the substantial trade, travel and remittance flows between the two countries.

Earlier this year, Singapore and Thailand connected their payments infrastructures to enable cross-border peer-to-peer transactions of up to S$1,000 or THB25,000 using just their mobile numbers.