Indian travellers can now use UPI apps to pay for online bookings at At the Top, Burj Khalifa in Dubai and at Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement on Friday, October 30.
NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL), the overseas arm of the National Payments Corporation of India, set up the two links through partnerships announced on July 29 and September 9. In the UAE it works with NEOPAY and Emaar Entertainment, and At the Top is the first attraction in the country to accept UPI for e-commerce. In Singapore, the payment institution FOMO Pay runs acceptance on the Resorts World Sentosa website, which sells tickets for Universal Studios Singapore, the Singapore Oceanarium and Adventure Cove Waterpark. Under the FOMO Pay model, the customer pays in rupees from an Indian app and the merchant is settled in Singapore dollars.
UPI is now accepted in 10 countries: Singapore, the UAE, France, Mauritius, Nepal, Bhutan, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Greece. The ministry said Uzbekistan will become the 11th after a commercial agreement announced on August 30. Singapore received 1.2 million Indian visitors in 2025.
Why it matters: Most of UPI’s overseas acceptance so far has been QR codes at shop counters, so online checkout lets travellers pay for tickets before they leave India, at the point where the spending decision is made. Each large merchant also gives NIPL a reference case to take to hotels, airlines and other attractions in the same markets. The test is volume: cards and forex cards are well established for travel spending, and the statement gave no transaction figures for these corridors.
Source: The Hindu BusinessLine (PTI); Moneycontrol; FOMO Pay
Image: Gary Bembridge from London, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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