As an open interoperable payments system, UPI will bring the convenience of digital payments to citizens of Nepal and will help modernise the country’s digital payment infrastructure.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) today announced it will share technology to with a Nepal company to provide unified payments interface (UPI) services in the Himalayan country. This has the potential to pave the way for transforming the country’s digital economy.
With this, Nepal will be the country outside India to adopt India’s UPI system technology. UPI provides real-time person-to-person and to-merchant payment transactions.
NPCI International Payments has partnered with Gateway Payments Service, an operator authorised to implement the payment system in Nepal.
As a payments platform, UPI will help catalyse the process of financial inclusion in Nepal. It has the potential to transform the regional economy by creating real-time cross-border facilities for businesses. Besides, it will also help person to person remittances between people in the two countries.
UPI will enable the final stretch of consumers in Nepal to reap the benefits of an open interoperable payments system and bring the convenience of digital payments to citizens of Nepal.
In 2021, UPI enabled 39 billion financial transactions amounting to commerce worth $940 billion, which is equivalent to approximately 31 per cent of India’s GDP.
45 per cent of Nepalis hold a bank account and mobile penetration in the country is over 135 per cent. Besides, 65 per cent of the population use smartphones.
GPS CEO Rajesh Prasad Manandhar says, “We expect UPI in Nepal would play a pivotal role in transforming the digital economy of the country and dreams of building a less-cash society.”
