Japan is exploring ways to join India’s UPI payment system
An official statement on Friday said that Japan is considering joining India’s UPI payment system and strengthening cooperation on the digital identity system.
Bhutan, Nepal, Singapore and the UAE have already started accepting Unified Payment Interface (UPI) payment systems.
“Almost every global forum, whether it’s the G20 or the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) or the G7, wherever we present Prime Minister Modi’s digital India vision, is very empowering.
Union Minister for ICT Ashwini Vaishinaw said, “People understand how Modi introduced digital technology to democracy. I thank Japan’s digital minister. He accepted Prime Minister Modi’s deep and holistic vision of digital India.”
Japan’s Digital Minister Kono Taro said earlier Friday in an interview with a media channel that Japan is considering joining India’s UPI system and working on mutual identification of digital identities as well.
“We just had the G7 Digital Ministers meeting last month and our Indian Digital Minister Mr. Vaishnau joined us and now. Japan and India are trying to strengthen digital cooperation.”
“We are now seriously considering joining the Indian UPI, the payments system and also, we are thinking about how electronic identity can be mutually recognized, starting with collaboration, so that we can increase interoperability,” Taro said.
According to a report published last month, UPI, debit and credit cards and prepaid gadgets – mobile phone and prepaid cards – processed 87.92 billion transactions worth Rs. $149.5 trillion in 2022 in India. In terms of UPI, person-to-merchant (P2M) and person-to-person (P2P) are the most preferred payment methods among consumers with 40 percent market share and 44 percent in terms of transaction volume (UPI was 84 percent in total), according to Worldline in its annual report on digital payments in India.