Japan is “seriously" evaluating adopting India’s UPI payments system as both governments look at promoting digital cooperation by creating interoperability where the digital payments system could bring ease of cross-border payments.  

Nearly 35-40 countries are in talks with India to adopt the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for digital payments and Japan joined the bandwagon after its minister was left amazed at witnessing widespread UPI use during a Delhi visit. 

A top government official told News18 that “35-40 countries” are now considering adopting UPI with India being actively engaged with them on the issue.  

Japan was the latest to say earlier this month that it was considering joining the UPI system. “Japanese Digital Minister Kona Taro was in India recently and met some senior ministers who advised him to check out the usage of UPI in India for himself. The minister went to a coffee shop in Khan Market, Delhi and was amazed to find everyone scanning QR codes there to make online payments. 

 Upon his return to Japan, the minister immediately called for a high-level meeting to discuss the UPI issue,” a top government official told News18. 

Japan would dispatch a team to India to thoroughly examine the UPI platform. If Japan were to adopt UPI, there would be talks of potentially linking the two countries systems. He also broached the subject of Japanese-Indian cooperation regarding telecommunication systems security. 

Other countries that have evinced interest in the UPI digital payments system include Bhutan, Malaysia, UAE, Nepal, France, UK, Russia, Oman, Qatar, Australia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea and Bahrain among others.  

India clocked a record 71,564 million UPI transactions in 2022-23 and has crossed 15,000 million UPI transactions in this fiscal already. The month of April saw the highest-ever number of 8,863 million UPI transactions worth Rs 14,15, 504 crore, as per the records.  

The number is only expected to rise further once UPI is accepted at merchant locations abroad for the ease of Indian visitors and expatriates. 

Image Source: Money Control