SBI rolls out Bhim SBIPay facility between India-Singapore corridor

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong, together launched the real-time payments system linkage between India and Singapore on February 21, 2023.

UPI and PayNow (the online payment system of Singapore) will power this linkage. The facility is offered through SBI's BHIM SBIPay mobile application. The linkage will allow fund transfers from India to Singapore through registered mobile numbers and from Singapore to India using UPI ID.

The UPI-PayNow linkage is a significant milestone towards development of infrastructure for cross-border payments between India and Singapore. The initiative closely aligns with the G20’s priorities of driving faster, cheaper, and more transparent cross-border payments.

The inward bilateral remittance between Singapore and India is around USD94.9 crore as of 2021 (as per World Bank Bilateral Remittance Matrix December 2022).

Shaktikanta Das, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, and Ravi Menon, Managing Director, Monetary Authority of Singapore executed the first live cross-border transaction. The RBI Governor used BHIM SBIPay for foreign inward remittance.

Commenting on the initiative, Modi said, “The linkage of these two payment systems between India and Singapore would enable residents of both countries to initiate a faster and more cost-efficient transfer of cross-border remittances. It will also help the Indian diaspora in Singapore, professionals, students, and workers through an instantaneous and low-cost transfer of money from Singapore to India and vice-versa."

Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore said that “cross-border retail payments and remittances between Singapore and India amount to over USD100 crore annually. As we progressively add more users and use cases, the UPI-PayNow linkage will grow in utility and contribute more to facilitating our trade and people-to-people links.”

Dinesh Khara, Chairman, State Bank of India, said the bank is glad to be associated with this pathbreaking initiative.

"This will go a long way in boosting the digitization initiatives of the Government and provide easy, seamless cross-border payment facility to the users,” he added.