NRE/NRO accounts with international mobile numbers can now use UPI

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has instructed members of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) ecosystem to allow non-resident account types such as non-resident external (NRE)/ non-resident ordinary (NRO) accounts having international mobile numbers to get onboarded and transact through UPI.

This is subject to the fact that the member banks have to ensure such types of accounts are only allowed as per extant Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) regulations and adherence to the guidelines issued by the concerned regulatory departments of RBI from time to time.

The UPI ecosystem members have to comply with NPCI's directions by April 30, 2023.

Also, all necessary anti-money laundering/ combating of financing of terrorism checks and compliance validation as per the rules have to be ensured by the remitter and beneficiary banks.   

To begin with, NPCI will be enabling transactions from mobile numbers having country codes of Singapore, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, USA, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom, along with the current domestic country code.

NPCI had been receiving requests from the UPI ecosystem as well as customers to allow non-resident accounts to transact through UPI. Hence, they decided to allow this so that the non-resident accounts having international numbers experience a seamless and instant journey of UPI.