The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is planning to expand UPI internationally by targeting countries with large Indian diaspora populations, with CEO Dilip Asbe stating it could enter 15-20 markets over the next decade. According to reports from Business Standard, Asbe emphasized that their governments and central banks will have the final say due to geopolitical and regulatory implications. "Is it possible to get 15-20 markets in the next 10 years' time? I think that's a top-level kind of go-to-market approach," Asbe said, adding that "the way India is self-sufficient on domestic payments, we would like to be as much self-sufficient on cross-border payments as well." NPCI is currently in talks with Japan, Malaysia and Bahrain among others, while exploring AI-enabled payments and building on UPI's presence in nine countries.
NPCI's strategy is specifically aimed at India's 35 million-strong diaspora, which sent home over ₹155 billion in remittances in the fiscal year ended March, representing the largest inflow globally. As reported by Business Standard, Asbe noted that "the diaspora is going to increase, travel is going to increase, the trade is going to increase." The expansion will build on UPI's current presence in nine countries, including Singapore, France and the United Arab Emirates, with UPI currently allowing person-to-person remittances for Singapore and Nepal, while inward remittances are enabled from Greece. Overseas Indians have also helped shore up the country's foreign-exchange reserves during periods of market stress through special deposit schemes.
NPCI is also exploring agentic AI to enable payments through platforms such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Alphabet Inc.'s Gemini, as reported by Business Standard. UPI has transformed everyday payments in India by allowing users to transfer money instantly between bank accounts using a mobile phone, bypassing card networks for many transactions. According to the International Monetary Fund, UPI is the world's largest real-time payment system by transaction volume, with apps such as Google Pay and PhonePe using UPI to process payments in India, while Apple Pay has yet to launch for domestic payments.
The overseas expansion comes as UPI's business model is evolving domestically, with India's lower house of Parliament approving legislation allowing banks and payment providers to levy charges on UPI transactions. As reported by Business Standard, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a post on X that NPCI is yet to decide on any charges, while an NPCI spokesperson declined to comment. The push comes as countries seek greater control over their payment systems after Western sanctions cut Russia off from the SWIFT financial messaging system and froze much of its foreign-exchange reserves.
Established by the Reserve Bank of India and banks, NPCI operates the country's retail payments infrastructure and also runs the RuPay card network, a domestic alternative to Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc.. According to Business Standard, NPCI is also offering the technology as a public good to developing nations such as Namibia, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago to help build and operate similar systems. Asbe emphasized that "no government would want over-dependence for critical functions like payment systems," noting that "the weaponization of the payment system has been exercised."
