UPI eyes growth in Africa and South America
India’s United Payments Interface (UPI) has become the country’s premier digital payments rail and is continuing to build ever greater scale. According to PwC, total UPI transaction volume is expected to grow from 131 billion in the 2023-24 fiscal year to 439 billion by 2028–29. UPI now accounts for over 80% of India’s overall retail digital payments and is expected to surpass 90% by 2028-29. Given UPI’s success, India has sought to expand its footprint internationally.
In recent years, UPI has become available in a number of countries from the United Arab Emirates and Bhutan to the UK and France. Yet questions remain about whether UPI can serve as a foundational platform for digital payments outside of India. While UPI has a role to play in advanced economies, especially in facilitating remittances from the Indian diaspora back home, emerging markets offer more comprehensive opportunities. In some cases, these countries are still building their core digital payments infrastructure. If UPI can play a leading role building that infrastructure, it is likely to have a significant footprint in the market.
With that in mind, the overseas arm of the National Payments Corporation of India (NIPL) is currently in talks with countries in Africa and South America to help them build a digital payments system using UPI as a blueprint. Earlier this year, the NIPL signed deals with the central banks of Peru and Namibia to help them build real-time payment systems similar to UPI. Brazil and Namibia are expected to launch their systems by late 2026 or early 2027, Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL), said in late September. The NIPL plans to double its 60-member team by March 2025 to deploy more staff overseas besides those it currently has in Singapore and the Middle East, Shukla added.
Trinidad and Tobago is also developing UPI-like digital payments infrastructure with the help of NIPL. “Trinidad and Tobago is taking significant steps towards advancing its financial infrastructure, and we are proud to support them in building a secure, sovereign and scalable payments platform,” Shukla said in a press release. “Our experience with UPI in India has demonstrated how real-time payments can transform economies, by improving access to essential financial services and reducing reliance on cash.”
Looking ahead, it is worth closely following the different tie-ups between NIPL and developing countries. If UPI is successful in its push to develop digital payments infrastructure for developing countries, it would make India a bigger player in the global financial system. This is something that has eluded China’s fintech giants, which also have sought to expand beyond their massive home market’s borders.
