Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently touring Singapore has announced the launch of three Indian mobile payments app in the country. At the 'Business, Innovation and Community Event' in Singapore, PM Modi launched India's payments apps- BHIM, RuPay and SBI, which is the government's first attempt at making the three services internationalisation. The main theme of the event was about Digital Platform, and it won't get any better for the Indian government to launch the services.
"Touching lives of common people through innovation! PM @narendramodi launched three technologies - RuPay, BHIM App and UPI enabled remittance app by State Bank of India, Singapore," MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted.
If you're wondering how these services work, the RuPay digital payments system was linked up with Singapore's 33-year-old Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS), as reported by PTI. That said, RuPay users will be able to make payments at all the points where NETS will be accepted.
Furthermore, the holders of Singapore NETS will be able to "make online purchases on the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) e-commerce merchant website, using 2.8 million RuPay point-of-sale terminals in India."
It is also said that the launch would create multi-billion-dollar transactions as some five million Indians travel through Singapore. Internationalising RuPay beginning with the first cross-border usage said some industry observers.
Besides the Digital Payment apps launch, a new app-based rupee remittance mode of the SBI's Singapore branch also launched at the same event. "In order to expand our remittance offering, we are launching rupee remittance to India through United Payments Interface (UPI)," SBI country head in Singapore, Soma Sankara Prasad, said after the launch.
This also makes Singapore branch of the SBI as the first one outside India to launch this mode of remittance in collaboration with NPCI. "This is a major step towards the internationalisation of India's digital payment platform," Prasad further added.
With this remittance, users will be able to make up to Rs 100,000 payments using the VPA. This new service will be available to all savings account holders of SBI Singapore.
