India and Japan to setup Efficient Cross Border Payments' System

Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das has suggested that India and Japan consider connecting their fast payment systems to make cross-border payments simpler and more cost-effective. This would add to the growing number of countries collaborating with domestic payment companies to establish similar arrangements.

“Linking of the UPI (Unified Payments Interface) with fast payment systems of other countries is also being undertaken. Linkage of fast payment systems of India and Japan may also be explored to leverage the power of fintech and make cross-border payments more efficient and less costly,” Das said on Thursday at the Symposium on Indian Economy 2023 organized by the Institute of Indian Economic Studies at the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tokyo, Japan.

In February, a real-time connection was established between UPI and PayNow by India and Singapore to enable quick and cost-efficient international money transfers.

 In September, the Deputy Governor of RBI, T. In July, Rabi Sankar announced that the Indian central bank had signed a memorandum of understanding with the central bank of the UAE to interlink mutual payments and messaging.

Das emphasized the crucial role Japan has played in developing infrastructure in India and suggested that the partnership between the two countries could be further enhanced in the area of human resources. He stated that there are numerous opportunities for collaboration in frontier technologies such as space technology, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, rare-earths extraction, semiconductors, resilient supply chains, and other areas.