UPI: Peru is the first S. American nation to adopt Indian instant payment tech
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Peru will soon become the first South American country to have a UPI-like instant payments system.
The NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL), the global arm of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), on Wednesday signed a pact with Peru’s central bank to develop digital payments technology, the media reported.
This is NIPL’s second partnership with a central bank overseas to deploy the hugely successful Unified Payments Interface (UPI) stack in the international market. In May also, the payments body agreed with the Bank of Namibia (BoN) to develop an instant payment system like UPI in the African nation.
NIPL’s CEO Ritesh Shukla said the partnership will strengthen Peru’s financial infrastructure and foster economic growth. The Peruvian citizens will gain access to an unparalleled level of convenience, security, and efficiency in financial transactions.
The partnership will facilitate instant payments between individuals and businesses, and expand the use of digital payments to Peru’s unbanked population.
“The support of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been a cornerstone of this agreement. The BCRP (Central Reserve Bank of Peru) aims to promote financial inclusion, security, and efficiency, and to introduce new use cases in digital payments. Additionally, we consider that this new infrastructure will play a fundamental role in fostering innovation and in allowing new participants to enter the Peruvian ecosystem,” said Julio Velarde, the BCRP’s Governor.
The development follows NPCI’s push to take UPI rails international after breaking into other markets such as France, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Mauritius. Around 40 countries are in talks with NPCI in this regard.
In January 2024, NPCI announced the launch of the UPI-PayNow linkage that enables Indians to receive remittances directly into their bank accounts from Singapore and vice-versa.
In February, it announced a partnership with e-commerce and proximity payments company Lyra, to enable UPI acceptance in France, and also rolled out UPI services in Sri Lanka and Mauritius.
