International mobile users can now use UPI: NRE/NRO account benefits explained
Delhi : The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has officially permitted transactions using the Unified Payments Interface, which is good news for account holders with international mobile numbers who have non-resident external (NRE) or non-resident ordinary (NRO) accounts (UPI).
According to a formal statement released by the NPCI, which serves as the umbrella organization for all Indian retail payment systems, non-resident account types like NRE and NRO accounts with international mobile numbers are now permitted to sign up for and conduct transactions through UPI.
However, the NPCI has set forth several requirements for the transaction made through UPI. The following are those:
Member banks must make sure that these sorts of accounts are only permitted in accordance with current Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) regulations and adherence to the guidelines/instructions provided from time to time by the relevant regulatory departments of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The remitter/beneficiary banks should be responsible for carrying out all necessary anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism checks, compliance validations, and account level validations in accordance with the extent of regulations applicable under the regulatory guideline.
The NPCI will initially permit transactions from mobile numbers with the following country codes, in addition to the current domestic country code: Singapore (+65), Australia (+61), Canada (+1), Hong Kong (+852), Oman (+968), Qatar (+974), USA (+1), Saudi Arabia (+966), United Arab Emirates (+971), and the United Kingdom (+44).
The official announcement stated, "And, this hall expand for other country code in near future by an amendment or guidelines provided by NPCI."
"NPCI has received demands from the ecosystem and customers regarding the Non-Resident (NR) accounts and other permissible accounts with international numbers to be allowed to interact in UPI. As a result, they decided to permit it so that non-resident accounts with foreign numbers may have a seamless and quick UPI journey, according to the NPCI.
