High Commission of India

Singapore 

Press Release 

    1.   The High Commissioner of India to Singapore, Mr Jawed Ashraf, demonstrated a pilot launch of acceptance of BHIM-UPI based QR payments in Singapore by carrying out a live transaction at a merchant terminal at Singapore Fintech Festival 2019. The pilot is running for the duration of the Festival from 11 to 15 November 2019. This QR based payment system would allow anyone with a BHIM app to scan the SGQR at NETS terminals in Singapore. This is the first time that BHIM app has gone international.

  2. The project is being jointly developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS) of Singapore. The project is targeted to go fully live by February 2020 and will cover thousands of terminals in Singapore after RBI approval. By February 2020, it is also expected that all RuPay cards, including domestic ones, will be acceptable in Singapore.

   3.  This is another achievement for fintech cooperation between India and Singapore, after the launch of RuPay International card and SBI’s UPI based remittance app, in May 2018, by Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, who had then also suggested the launch of BHIM QR based payments internationally.

  4.The High Commissioner also witnessed the signing of an MOU between Trade promotion Council of India (TPCI) and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for working towards access of TPCI dashboard to Business sans Borders (BSB). BSB, a project conceived by MAS and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), is a hub for connecting trade platforms of SMEs. BSB is currently running a pilot with SMEs in South East Asia and India and once fully rolled out, it will allow millions of

SMEs across the region to reach a wider market domestically and internationally and access ancillary services like credit facilities, insurance, logistics and legal/professional services.  The Confederation of All India Traders, which counts seventy million traders in India as its members, is already connected to BSB through a platform provided by Mastercard-GlobalLinker Program.

 5. The Indian contingent at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2019 is one of the largest, with forty three companies and start-ups participating from India.

***

High Commission of India

Singapore

13 November 2019