Bhutan to become First Foreign Country to adopt BHIM UPI
NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL) and Royal Monetary Authority (RMA) of Bhutan are collaborating to enable and implement BHIM UPI QR-Based payments in Bhutan. NIPL is the international subsidiary of NPCI.
The Union Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, along with her counterpart, the Finance Minister of Bhutan, Mr. Lyonpo Namgay Tshering, formally launched the service in a virtual ceremony.
The Road Ahead
The Royal Monetary Authority (RMA) of Bhutan is the central bank of Bhutan. It was established under the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan Act of 1982. NPCI said the launch of BHIM UPI in Bhutan will add a new milestone in financial integration between the two economies.
The joint venture between NIPL and RMA will enable the acceptance of UPI-powered BHIM App in Bhutan. RMA will ensure that the participating NPCI mobile application through UPI QR is accepted at all RMA acquired merchants in Bhutan.
This will also help more than 200,000 tourists from India who travel to Bhutan every year. With this launch, Bhutan will become the first foreign country to adopt UPI standards for its QR deployment.
What is Unified Payments Interface (UPI)?
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank). It merges several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one app.
It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect requests. Users can schedule and pay as per requirement and convenience using the service.
With this decision, Bhutan has become the only country to accept both UPI and RuPay payments. The NPCI has also partnered with Network International to allow RuPay payments in UAE. RuPay is India’s first-of-its-kind global card payment network. RuPay recorded 1 billion transactions in 2019 across both online and offline payment modalities, with over 635 million cards issued so far.
Do subscribe to our Telegram channel for more resources and discussions on tech-law. To receive weekly updates, don’t forget to subscribe to our Newsletter.
