Oman Becomes World's Seventh Nation To Adopt India's UPI & RuPay Cards For Payments

After countries including Singapore, Nepal, UAE, Bhutan, Malaysia and France began accepting payments through UPI and RuPay Cards, Oman has become the seventh nation to do so. For the uninitiated, the popular payment system UPI (Unified Payments Interface) was developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI).

As recently as last month, UPI showcased its rising popularity as it clocked a record Rs 11.16 lakh crore worth of transactions alone in September. And now, another key moment has arrived for UPI, with Oman formally joining the league of nations adopting the UPI for digital transactions across platforms last week.

¡°Happy to meet with H.E. Tahir Al Amri, Executive President, Central Bank of Oman & witness signing of the historic MOU between CBO and NPCI to launch the Rupay debit card in Oman, paving the way for a new era of financial connectivity. A new milestone in the bilateral relations,¡± V. Muraleedharan, MoS for the Union ministry of external affairs tweeted last week.

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This comes after New Delhi and Muscat reached a consensus to expand the Indian digital payment ecosystem to the gulf region. A formal agreement in this regard was signed between the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) last week.

As per ET, experts believe that the agreement will open the floodgates for Indian RuPay cards and the UPI platform in Oman for seamless digital remittances, a move that is likely to benefit Indian workers and professionals.

Oman And India¡¯s Partnerships

Oman is India¡¯s oldest strategic relationship in the Gulf region and a close defence and strategic partner. Oman also plays an important role in supporting Indian naval deployments in the western Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.

Moreover, India is one of the largest investors in Oman with total investments of over $7.5 billion. The bilateral trade between the two nations is reportedly on the rise with total trade in FY 2021-22 touching nearly $10 billion.

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Also Read: Finance Ministry Refutes Plans To Levy Charges On UPI Transactions

Australia & Russia¡¯s Interest In UPI

Besides these seven nations, Australia too is in advanced talks with India for early integration of UPI with the Australian New Payment Platform. Also, Russia has expressed interest in pushing dialogue on accepting UPI and Faster Payments System (FPS) of the Central Bank of Russia within their respective national payment infrastructures.

And that¡¯s not all. Earlier in September 2021, Liquid Group, a cross-border digital payment service provider, reportedly signed an agreement with NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) to launch a UPI-based QR code payment system in 10 nations-Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan beginning in 2022.

678 Crore UPI Transactions In September

As per the latest NPCI data, the number of UPI transactions in September reportedly grew by over 3% to 678 crore from a month ago. In August, the total number of UPI-based digital financial transactions stood at 657 crore.

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