The concept and use of the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) are becoming a lot more accessible in India. However, recent news suggests that NRIs will now be able to access UPI on their international mobile numbers, making things a lot more accessible and easy for them.
Recently, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has issued guidelines under which the NRIs will now be able to make the most use of the UPI system for making payments, which is a lot more prevalent in India.
According to the reports, NRIs from 10 listed countries, as suggested by NPCI, will be able to use their international mobile numbers for their bank accounts, which are termed Non-Resident External (NRE) or Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) accounts.
As per the guidelines, the NRIs living in one of those listed ten countries will be able to activate their UPI ID using the international mobile number that they use in the country they are currently residing in.
This is an exemption from the fact that setting up a UPI ID in India requires the users to have a valid and working Indian mobile phone number.
Once the user activates their UPI ID on an app like Google Pay, PhonePe, or PayTm, the app immediately sends an SMS to verify whether or not the number is registered with the said bank account. Failure to verify that will prevent the user from opening their UPI ID.
So, for the NRIs who live abroad, being able to use and access UPI IDs becomes impossible. Even if you do have to keep an Indian mobile phone number active abroad, the international roaming charges are just not worth the money and the hassle.
With this new regulation, the NRIs will now be able to access UPI without any hassle using their international mobile numbers. However, NPCI has also clarified that the member banks will have to ensure that the UPI account is allowed under the FEMA regulations without any further questions.
Although there isn’t any official notice about the date of initiation, reports suggest that NPCI will soon enable this new regulation for the NRIs currently residing in Singapore, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, the USA, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the UK.
Streamlining this new feature will enable the NRIs to comfortably access the required Indian-based banks using the UPI system with a lot of ease.
