"UPI with Singapore and Dubai may start this year. It is likely to be announced with France as well. Indians travelling to these countries will be able to use the UPI. A number of countries are in the pipeline where the system will be extended," said Pramod Varma, advisor to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), according to The Indian Express. He was speaking on the sidelines of the G20 meeting on 'Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion' held in Kolkata. On the sidelines of the same meeting, the National Payments Corporation of India's (NPCI) Chief Executive Officer Dilip Asbe said, “We have received intent (regarding UPI) from 3-4 countries and we are in the process of working out the next details,” according to Business Standard. However, it might take another 12 months for interested countries to "sign up", Asbe said. He also said that their objective was to look at a $1-million implementation (cost) in smaller countries. Also, the collaboration between Singapore and India for remittances is ready, said Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). This system is expected the lower the cost of sending remittances between the two countries. Thailand and Singapore already have a linkage system through which they were able to bring down the cost of transferring remittance from 15% to 3%, according to Business Standard. Challenges with cross-border UPI adoption Encouraging cross-border UPI transactions is expected to reduce the cost of transferring funds between different countries, but it has…
