NRIs in UAE can now make UPI transactions using their international mobile phone numbers

Gulf Today Report

Here is some excellent news for Indians residing in 10 countries. They can now access Unified Payments Interface (UPI) services for transactions without having to depend on their India phone number.

According to media reports, Non Resident Indians (NRIs) in 10 countries —  Singapore, US, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and UK — will be allowed to access UPI services with their international phone numbers.

According to the Indian media, NRE and NRO (Non Resident External and Non Resident Ordinary) account holders with international mobile numbers can transact using UPI.

The National Payments Corporation of India that oversees the transaction gave banks an April 30th deadline to comply with new directives.

An NRE account helps NRIs transfer foreign earnings to India, while an NRO account helps them manage the income earned in India.

The only conditions are that banks ensure such accounts are allowed according to the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) regulations; follow the guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and guard against money laundering or terror financing.

On the other hand, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the incentive scheme for promotion of RuPay debit cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions (person-to-merchant) for a period of one year from April 2022.

The approved incentive scheme in 2022-23 has a financial outlay of Rs 2,600 crore.

Under the scheme, acquiring banks will be provided financial incentives for promoting Point-of-Sale (PoS) and e-commerce transactions using RuPay Debit Cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions (P2M) for the current financial year.

In 2021-22, the government had approved an incentive scheme in compliance with the budget announcement of 2021-22 to give a further boost to digital transactions.