UPI expands further globally; Indian travellers to U.K. to enjoy hassle-free digital transactions

NPCI International Payments Ltd partners with U.K.’s PayXpert

Expanding further outside India, the indigenously developed real-time payments solution the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will foray into the United Kingdom market starting with QR code-based transactions.

The NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL) has forged a partnership with payments solutions provider PayXpert to internationalise the acceptance of its payment solutions in the U.K.

NIPL is the wholly-owned subsidiary of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which developed the world's largest real-time payment solution the UPI and the RuPay card scheme.

"This collaboration will make the Indian payment solutions available in the U.K. on all PayXpert's android point-of-sale (POS) devices for in-store payments, starting with UPI-based QR code payments and later integrating the possibility for RuPay card payments," NPCI said in a release on Thursday.

Counted as one of the most successful Real-Time Payments (RTP) systems globally, UPI clocked a volume of $940 billion (39 billion transactions) in 2021, equivalent to 31% of India's GDP.

RuPay is the domestically developed global card payment network in India with over 70 crore (700 million) cards issued to date.

David Armstrong, Managing Director, PayXpert in the U.K., said the foray of UPI and RuPay will open up a new field of opportunity for the company in the U.K. It will further strengthen the capability of company's solution for U.K. merchants, he said.