Japan Explores Ways to Join India's UPI Payment System

Japan is mulling to join India's UPI payment system and promote cooperation on the digital identity system, an official statement said on Friday.

Bhutan, Nepal, Singapore and UAE have already started accepting Unified Payment Interface (UPI) payment systems.

"Almost every global forum, whether G20, SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) or G7, wherever we are presenting Hon'ble PM Modi's Digital India vision, has very good traction.

"People understand how Modi ji has democratised digital technology. I thank the Japanese digital minister. He has accepted PM Modi's very deep and extensive vision of Digital India," Union Minister for IT and Telecom Ashwini Vaishnaw said.

Japanese Digital Minister Kono Taro earlier on Friday said in an interview with a media channel that Japan is mulling joining India's UPI system and working on mutually recognising digital identities as well.

"We just had our G7 Digital Ministers' meeting last month and we had our Indian Digital Minister Mr Vaishnaw join with us and right now. Japan and India are trying to promote digital cooperation."

"We are now seriously thinking about joining Indian UPI, the payments system and also, we are contemplating how we can mutually recognise e-ID, for well – starting with cooperation, so we can increase interoperability," Taro said. 

According to a report published last month, UPI, debit and credit cards, and prepaid payment instruments — Mobile and Prepaid cards —processed 87.92 billion transactions worth Rs. 149.5 trillion during 2022 in India. In terms of UPI, Person-to-Merchant (P2M) and Person-to-Person (P2P) are the most preferred payment modes among consumers with a market share of 40 percent and 44 percent in terms of transactions volume (UPI was 84 percent in total), according to Worldline in its India Digital Payments Annual Report.