{"id":32307,"date":"2023-02-02T06:10:38","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T00:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=32307"},"modified":"2025-04-19T10:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T04:54:15","slug":"unified-payments-interface-upi-nris-from-10-countries-can-use-upi-with-their-international-mobile-nu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/unified-payments-interface-upi-nris-from-10-countries-can-use-upi-with-their-international-mobile-nu\/","title":{"rendered":"NRIs from 10 countries can use UPI with their international mobile numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are the Benefits of NPCI Notification and Who will Receive them?\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is the Discussion on Merchant Discount Rate (MDR)?\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Where does UPI Stand Now?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>According to a notice by the <strong>National Payments Corporation of India<\/strong> (NPCI), non-resident account types that have international mobile numbers will now be allowed to transact with Unified Payments Interface (UPI).<\/li>\n<li>Consequently, the Union Cabinet <strong>approved an incentive scheme<\/strong> (with an outlay of \u20b9 2,600 crore) for the promotion of RuPay debit Cards and low\u00ad value BHIM \u00adUPI transactions (person\u00ad to\u00ad merchant) in FY 2022\u00ad-23.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>\n<p><strong>What are the Benefits of NPCI Notification and Who will Receive them?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Non-\u00adresident accounts<\/strong> such as <u>non\u00ad-resident external accounts (NRE<\/u>) and <u>non\u00ad-resident ordinary accounts (NRO<\/u>), having international numbers, will now be allowed into the UPI payment system.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>NRE accounts<\/strong> are those used by non-\u00adresidents Indians (NRIs) to transfer earnings from foreign soil to India while <strong>NRO accounts<\/strong> are used to manage income earned in India (rent, interest, pension, etc) by NRIs.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The NPCI had allowed UPI transactions <strong>to and from NRO\/NRE accounts<\/strong> linked to Indian numbers back in October 2018.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>At present, <strong>users from 10 countries<\/strong> will be able to avail the facility &#8211; Singapore, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the U.K.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The development would<strong> allow NRIs to &#8211;\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Use the payment method for making utility bill payments<\/strong> for their families (or themselves) in India,\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Make purchases from e\u00ad-commerce or online platforms and\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Make payments to physical merchants who accept UPI QR based payments when they travel to India.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Currently<\/strong>, all the internal systems as well as ecosystem players such as banks, NPCI, etc., only understand India-based mobile numbers for UPI transactions.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>With this enablement, <strong>a significant number of systems<\/strong> will need <strong>infrastructural and technological changes<\/strong> required to support such payments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>\n<p><strong>What is the Discussion on Merchant Discount Rate (MDR)?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>MDR (alternatively referred to as the Transaction Discount Rate (TDR)) <strong>is the sum total of all the charges and taxes<\/strong> that a digital payment entails.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>For instance, the MDR <strong>includes bank charges<\/strong>, which a bank charges customers and merchants for allowing payments to be made digitally.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Similarly, <strong>MDR also includes the processing charges<\/strong> that a payments aggregator has to pay to online or mobile wallets or indeed to banks for their service.<\/li>\n<li>Presently, <strong>there is no MDR charge levied for RuPay<\/strong> \u00adbased debit card and UPI transactions.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>In 2022, the Finance Ministry stated that<strong> it was not planning to levy any charges for UPI services <\/strong>and the concerns of the service providers for cost recovery have to be met through other means.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and various stakeholders expressed concerns about the potential adverse <strong>impact of the zero MDR regime on the growth of the digital payments\u2019 ecosystem.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>The NPCI requested the incentivisation<\/strong> of BHIM\u00ad UPI and RuPay debit card transactions to &#8211;<\/li>\n<li>Create a cost effective value proposition for ecosystem stakeholders,\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Increase merchant acceptance footprints and\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Faster migration from cash payments to digital payments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>\n<p><strong>Where does UPI Stand Now?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/ivCY7CUZJpdLFFTgNXvY6RUr8xJkES2mHHmzD86FhMmMH-X_uPuUHUgBO9nj_xlz1fQpxRB_k7b293G62ymak-1LgwIfadsgwFeI84b0G6wlgu0pMNA-NgUFewxWkV_gvA7kXrwUZBwf2CZfemyimA\" alt=\"\" \/><\/h2>\n<p>\u00a0Image Caption: Architecture of UPI in India<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As of latest available data, 6,779.6 million transactions worth about <strong>\u20b910.95 lakh crore<\/strong> have been facilitated using UPI.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>In the previous calendar year, excluding one month of fall (between January and February), UPI transactions have been on an <strong>upward trajectory<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>As per the <strong>DigiDhan <\/strong>dashboard maintained by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, <strong>BHIM\u00ad UPI accounted for 52% of all digital payments<\/strong> in FY 2021\u00ad-22 and at present it stands at 59.74%.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What are the NRE\/NRO accounts? Do they come under the UPI payment system?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>NRE accounts are those used by non-\u00adresidents Indians (NRIs) to transfer earnings from foreign soil to India while NRO accounts are used to manage income earned in India (rent, interest, pension, etc) by NRIs. According to a notice by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), such accounts will now be allowed to transact with UPI.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR)?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p>MDR\/ Transaction Discount Rate (TDR)) is the sum total of all the charges and taxes that a digital payment entails. For instance, the MDR includes bank charges, which a bank charges customers and merchants for allowing payments to be made digitally.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/business\/Economy\/nris-from-10-countries-can-use-upi-with-their-international-mobile-numbers\/article66368563.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>NRIs from 10 countries can use UPI with their international mobile numbers<\/u><\/a>\u00a0 <strong>|\u00a0 <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/ccidist-ws\/th\/th_delhi\/issues\/23469\/OPS\/GE0AQVDDD.1.png?rev=2023-02-02T00:17:41+05:30&amp;cropFromPage=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>TH<\/u><\/a><strong>\u00a0 \u00a0|\u00a0 <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.livemint.com\/Industry\/bTGwxmykXhSKX5Vf8050NI\/How-UPI-works.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Mint<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Video:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=s0hdiDyBOTg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=s0hdiDyBOTg<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Non-\u00adresident accounts having international numbers, will now be allowed into the UPI payment system<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":32308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}