Coinbase suspends payments via UPI in India
1 min read 10 Apr 2022, 05:44 PM ISTCoinbase at present shows that the users can sell via IMPS method. Buying option is unavailable at the moment
PremiumThree days after adding support for the popular Unified Payments Interface payment instrument in India, US cryptocurrency exchange operator Coinbase has disabled the option to buy cryptocurrencies using the UPI in India on Sunday.
The app at present shows that the users can sell via IMPS method. Buying option is unavailable at the moment.
The world's largest exchange had announced that it will allow users to use UPI in a mega event on 7 April.
The development follows a strange statement from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the governing body that oversees UPI in the country, which said hours after Coinbase’s India launch earlier this week that it was not aware of any crypto exchange using UPI payments instrument.
Notably, Mobikwik wallet, which had partnered with major cryptocurrency exchanges, has stopped supporting crypto trading.
Coinbase to more than triple India headcount in 2022
Coinbase plans to more than triple its number of employees in India this year to around 1,000, according to Chief Executive Officer Brian Armstrong.
India will be Coinbase’s technology hub to develop global products and half of the new hires will be engineers, added Pankaj Gupta, the company’s India site head. The South Asian nation will account for a quarter of the total 2,000 people Coinbase plans to hire across product, engineering and design in 2022.
“Last year we decided India is going to be a huge place," Gupta said. “We understand the complexity of Indian market. It’s a place with a lot of potential."
Coinbase’s expansion plans in India come against the backdrop of a backlash among local competitors against a draconian new taxation regime. The government is imposing a 1% tax deductible at source, or TDS, on all digital-asset transfers above a certain size -- a move executives have warned will deprive the market of much-needed liquidity.
“We are going to invest for the long term in India," Armstrong said.
India, with an estimated 15 million active crypto users, has been stuck in regulatory limbo since the Supreme Court in 2020 overturned a central bank directive banning regulated entities from working with digital-assets companies.
