Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday exhorted the fintech ecosystem to further expand the global reach of India’s unified payments interface ( UPI ), connect it with other countries’ local systems and help the diaspora save on remittance costs.
Because the performance came in a challenging quarter when the impact of the West Asia conflict was the highest, in his address after inaugurating the 7th edition of the Global Fintech Fest, Modi said the Indian economy’s 7.8 per cent real GDP expansion gave confidence to the world at large.
Urging the fintech (financial technology) ecosystem to not rest on the laurels of the past decade that saw real-time payments using UPI rise to 24.51 billion transactions, as of August this year, the PM said the next aim should be to expand UPI’s global reach. Modi said the UPI platform is now live in 11 countries and has been connected with the local system in Singapore, which has brought transactions between the two countries on a par with payments done between two local neighbourhoods. He said the PM-SVANidhi initiative of supporting street vendors with working capital credit was made possible by UPI, which helped increase the average annual income of the beneficiaries by 20 per cent.
Because indians work in large numbers in foreign countries, “This is essential. They are the largest remitters of money.
He said the focus should be on countries that are home to a large Indian diaspora, have high trade volumes with India or are willing to partner with New Delhi in connecting their systems. A part of the remittances goes away as transaction costs; UPI can help in saving on these costs and the money can also reach families faster,” he said. Reiterating French President Emmanuel Macron’s words, Modi said UPI is not only a tech story but also a civilisational one.
