India in talks with Latin American, African countries for UPI: Official

New Delhi: India is in talks with a number of South American and African countries for the usage of Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and RuPay cards as a payment platform in these geographies, a senior government official said on Tuesday.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI) are in discussions with various countries, various high commissions and embassies, the person said, requesting anonymity.

"These discussions are at various stages of negotiations as India looks to internationalise UPI," the person added.

Mint had on 27 August reported that India is in talks with African countries, including Namibia, Mozambique and Kenya, to help develop its Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and to conclude commercial partnerships between payments platforms.

Ritesh Shukla, the international chief executive of the NPCI, which developed UPI, had recently said that the number of countries where UPI is live will double in the next 12-18 months.

"We have specific objectives for popularising and internationalising Rupay and UPI," the official said, adding that the government wants to make these global products.

In India, UPI transactions crossed the 10 billion mark in August.

Meanwhile, the RBI is planning to introduce wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the interbank borrowing market, especially in the call money market, the official said.

The interbank borrowing market helps banks borrow money from other banks to maintain sufficient liquidity for their immediate needs. This lending system is typically a short-term one.

The interbank call money market is a short-term money market which allows for large financial institutions, such as banks, mutual funds, and corporations, to borrow and lend money at interbank rates,

"The purpose of wholesale CBDCs has been to try out different technologies. Going forward we will try other technologies, like using CBDCs as tokens for call money settlement," the official said.

"Experimenting on technology is relatively easier for wholesale (CBDC) pilots," the official added.

Last year, the RBI initiated pilot testing CBDCs in both wholesale and retail segments. It aims to scale up the number of CBDC transactions to one million per day by the end of 2023.

"We are confident of achieving the target of one million daily CBDC transactions by December 2023. We had seen over 25,000 CBDC transactions till July," the person said.

"The purposes of CBDC pilots are to understand the benefits, risks, and impact it will have on bank deposits, monetary policy, etc.," the person added.