IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw welcomes Japan's interest in joining India's UPI

Responding to the statement made by Japan’s digital transformation minister Kono Taro, expressing Japan’s interest in joining India’s UPI payment system, the IT minister said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India vision has very good traction in almost every global forum, whether G20, SCO or G7, wherever it is being presented.

“I thank the Japanese digital minister he has accepted PM Modi’s very deep and extensive vision of Digital India,” Vaishnaw said.

Launched on 11 April, 2016, UPI is an instant real-time payment system developed by National Payments Corporation of India. The interface facilitates inter-bank peer-to-peer and person-to-merchant transactions. It is used on Mobile devices to instantly transfer funds between two bank accounts.

In an interview with a media channel, Japanese Digital Minister Kono Taro said, “We just had our G7 Digital Ministers’ meeting last month and we had our Indian Digital Minister Mr Vaishnaw join with us and right now, Japan and India are trying to promote a digital cooperation.”

He added: “We are now seriously thinking about joining Indian UPI, the payments system and also, we are contemplating how we can mutually recognise e-ID, for well – starting with cooperation, so we can increase interoperability.”

As of November 2022, the platform has over 300 million monthly active users in India. The proportion of UPI transactions in the total volume of digital transactions grew from 23% in 2018–19 to 55% in 2020–21 with an average value of Rs 1,849 per transaction. It enabled over 2,348 transactions every second in 2022.

Currently, PM Narendra Modi is visiting Japan where he will attend the G-7 Summit in Hiroshima city.

A Quad Summit is also likely to be held in Hiroshima on the sidelines of the G7.