India's UPI to be accepted in Cambodia under NPCI-ACLEDA partnership

NPCI International and ACLEDA Bank have partnered to enable UPI and KHQR acceptance in India and Cambodia, offering tourists secure, interoperable and seamless QR-based payments

NPCI International Payments partnered with Cambodia-based ACLEDA Bank to enable the acceptance of homegrown real-time payments rails Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in the Southeast Asian country.

 

What does the partnership enable for both payment systems? 

The partnership will also enable the acceptance of Cambodia’s national quick response (QR) network Bakong (KHQR) in India.

 

How will travellers benefit from UPI–KHQR interoperability? 

The payments collaboration between the two countries will offer Indian and Cambodian travellers the ability to pay through QR codes across tourist attractions, restaurants and retail outlets, among others.

 

“The collaboration will support businesses in both countries by offering a secure, interoperable and frictionless payment experience via UPI and KHQR, significantly enhancing convenience for consumers in both markets,” it said in a joint statement.

 

How many merchant touch points are available for Indian and Cambodian tourists? 

Indian tourists in Cambodia can use UPI apps to make payments at merchant outlets in the country. There are more than 4.5 million KHQR merchant touch points. 

 

In comparison, Cambodian tourists in India can transact through more than 709 million UPI QR codes.

 

What did NIPL say about the cross-border partnership? 

“By enabling UPI and KHQR acceptance across both countries, we aim to make travel simpler and empower consumers with trusted and familiar payment options. This partnership reflects our commitment to expanding secure, inclusive and scalable digital payments on a global scale,” said Ritesh Shukla, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO), NIPL.

 

NIPL is the international arm of the National Payments Corporation of India. It is responsible for the internationalisation of UPI.

 

How does Cambodia view the partnership? 

“In addition, this collaboration represents an important step toward regional payment interoperability, aligning with ASEAN’s vision of advancing inclusive digital economies and fostering financial innovation in digital payments, empowering our customers with fast, affordable and secure cross-border options that boost trade and tourism for both nations,” said Dr In Channy, president and group managing director of ACLEDA Bank.

 

What are India’s recent moves in global payment linkages? 

Last month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that UPI will be interlinked with TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS), the instant payment system operated by the Eurosystem.

 

RBI, along with NIPL, is expected to collaborate with the European Central Bank to operationalise the UPI–TIPS link, including technical integration, risk management and settlement arrangements.

 

Where else is UPI already accepted internationally? 

Acceptance of UPI as a payment method for Indian tourists has been enabled in countries such as Singapore, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, Qatar and France.

 

There are more than two million international merchants taken on board to enable UPI acceptance, according to NIPL data.

 

NIPL is supporting countries such as Namibia, Trinidad and Tobago and Peru to develop a system similar to UPI.

 

How many transactions did UPI process in November? 

In India, UPI processed 20.47 billion transactions valued at around Rs 26.32 trillion in November.