The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has signed a pact with four ASEAN states – Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand – to interlink its domestic payments' system, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), with Fast Payments' Systems (FPS) of these countries, according to a statement by RBI on Monday.
"The Reserve Bank of India has now joined Project Nexus, a multilateral international initiative to enable instant cross-border retail payments by interlinking domestic FPSs. Nexus, conceptualised by the Innovation Hub of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), aims to connect the FPSs of four ASEAN countries," the statement reads.
The pact was signed with four states central banks of the "founding members" and "first mover countries" of the platform – Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Bank of Thailand (BOT), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) – on Sunday in Basel, Switzerland.
In the meantime, Indonesia would also join the Nexus platform in the future, as well as many other states, according to the statement. The RBI noted that it was already engaged in bilateral efforts with other countries to expand the global presence of UPI.
"The platform is expected to go live by 2026. Once functional, Nexus will play an important role in making retail cross-border payments efficient, faster, and more cost effective," the RBI statement said.
The Indian central bank noted that a "multilateral approach" would provide a further boost to New Delhi's ongoing efforts to expand the reach of UPI, which is based on Indian Rupee (INR).