India’s UPI expands into Central Asia with Uzbekistan deal

Uzbekistan has become the latest international market for India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), in another example of India exporting digital public infrastructure capabilities.

The announcement was made recently by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a bilateral visit to Uzbekistan.

This agreement means that Indian tourists, business travelers and students will be able to make person-to-merchant payments in Uzbekistan by scanning the country’s national interoperable QR code (UZQR) through their existing UPI-enabled apps. Payments will then be debited directly from Indian bank accounts.

The partnership, which the central banks of both countries have approved, involves NPCI International Payments Ltd. (NIPL), the international arm of the National Payments Corporation of India, and Uzbekistan’s National Interbank Processing Centre JSC (NIPC), which operates the HUMO national payment system.

The integration gives Indian visitors an alternative to international cards, ATM withdrawals and local payment accounts.

The deal marks UPI’s first entry into Central Asia. The system facilitated more than 18 billion financial transactions monthly as of last year. UPI was developed in 2016 by the NPCI and built on the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) infrastructure. It is part of the India Stack which the country believes will make it a trillion-dollar digital economy in the next five years.

UPI was already accepted in 10 countries including Singapore, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), France, Mauritius, Nepal, Bhutan, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Greece; the Uzbekistan agreement extends its international reach into Central Asia.

Officials say the integration can reduce exposure to unfavorable exchange rates and cash conversion losses for users, while giving Uzbek merchants access to instant digital settlement from foreign visitors.

The move serves as one of the latest examples of DPI export, for which India is a well-known player. The country has continued to export its digital public infrastructure expertise with memorandums of understanding signed with more than 23 countries across the world. Other governments are also increasingly packaging digital public infrastructure expertise for international cooperation and export.

Article Topics

digital economy  |  digital payments  |  digital public infrastructure  |  India  |  Unified Payments Interface - UPI  |  Uzbekistan