India and Singapore are speeding up cross-borders remittances and retail trades

The integration of fast payment systems between India and Singapore is a welcome move for non-resident Indians in Singapore. But it’s only useful if the transaction costs are lower than other routes for remittances.

Following deals with Bhutan and Dubai earlier this year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) signed an agreement with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to link their respective fast payment systems—Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and PayNow—to facilitate instant, low-cost, cross-border fund transfers. The linkage is expected to come into effect by July 2022.

“The UPI-PayNow linkage will enable users of each of the two fast payment systems to make instant, low-cost fund transfers on a reciprocal basis without a need to get onboarded onto the other payment system,” the RBI said in a press release (pdf).

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