G-20 Sherpas' meeting: India to fund digital payments infrastructure abroad

Not only is India willing to provide the technical expertise to low- and middle-income nations that are interested in developing or improving their own digital payments systems, but is also keen to finance such efforts, Business Standard has learnt.

“We are looking to help the countries in the ‘global south’ with their own digital public infrastructure. We have built our own infrastructure and are showcasing it throughout G20. We will help them with the funding of such initiatives as well,” a senior government official told this paper on the sidelines of the G20 Sherpas’ Meeting in Kumarakom, Kerala.

Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar had last month said a number of Commonwealth nations from the Caribbean and South Pacific, and some Latin American countries as well are interested in using Unified Payments Interface (UPI) or a similar technology. However, it was understood then to be just technical expertise. Funding such efforts adds a new dimension in terms of India’s outreach to low and middle income countries.

“This is about spreading India’s soft power and also enabling Indian private sector, which is well versed in these technologies, to get business opportunities abroad,” a second senior official said.

Digital public infrastructure like Aadhaar, UPI, and other such successes is something that India is keen to showcase during its presidency of G20. “Almost all the events we are hosting this year will have a session on the sidelines on DPI. We have invited representatives from a number of countries, including those from outside G20, and are engaging with them actively through these sessions,” the official quoted above said.

Both the officials said the sessions were being used to demystify UPI and Aadhaar tech for the visiting representatives, so that they can be encouraged to adapt these in their own digital public infrastructure systems.

Separately, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting, National Payments Corporation of India CEO Dilip Asbe spoke to reporters and said after India and Singapore linked their digital payment systems, many other countries were of interest to implement similar linkages, especially in the Middle-East and India’s neighbours in South Asia. This is primarily due to the high volumes of remittances that flow between India and these nations.

The United Arab Emirates is of great interest to us… many mid-east countries are an area of interest. Through G20 we are starting conversations on payments and remittances with our partners, including our neighbours,” Asbe said.

“The RBI and the central government have reached out to many regulators. The India-Singapore corridor is a great example for cross-border payment systems. It shows it’s possible to replicate when two regulators and governments come together and define the framework and regulations,” Asbe said.

Digital prowess steals the show

Showcasing India’s digital prowess, interactive stalls enabling real-time transactions and data flow were set up by Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker and CoWin as well as Google Pay, Amazon, PayTM, Microsoft, and TCS. A large slot was allocated to Nasscom. 

When the choice of venue counts
 

Keeping the big G20 meetings away from the city centre has served two major purposes — the traffic and civic amenities in the cities are not disru­pted and the infrastructure and roads in these parts of the country undergo a massive improvement.