India offers UPI tech cooperation to Seychelles

Seychelles, which has been a key political and military partner for India in the Indian Ocean since it gained independence from Britain in 1976, is considering the proposal.

The move comes as India makes efforts to push its digital solutions in partner countries and the Global South. UPI technologies have been deployed in Bhutan and Nepal while Sri Lanka is expected to roll out the platform soon. Talks are also on for India to cooperate with a number of countries in Africa, the Middle-East and Southeast Asia on this front.

Queries mailed to the external affairs ministry and the high commission of the Seychelles in New Delhi went unanswered at press time.

Ritesh Shukla, chief executive officer of NPCI International, recently told Mint that the number of countries using UPI will double in 12-18 months.

India’s offerings on UPI are twofold. The first involves building technology infrastructure and sharing know-how with partner countries.

“There are many countries in the world who have similar problems we had before the advent of UPI. These are financial inclusion, supporting rural economies, FinTech incubation, transparency and other things. We are looking at partnering with those countries to help them create their own version of UPI in a very sovereign manner. And this outreach includes not only technology sharing but also sharing business know-how, which the way we operate this platform. So that’s the first part which we also call “infrastructure build"," Shukla had told Mint.

“The second pillar of our strategy is connecting UPI in India with other such ecosystems to serve two use cases. One is merchant payments. So when your visitors, including tourists, businessmen or even students are going overseas, they should be able to have the option of using UPI powered apps in different markets by scanning the QR codes. That’s merchant payment that we are pursuing. The second is remittances," Shukla had said.

India’s outreach to the Seychelles, which lies off the coast of East Africa, has had a strong emphasis on defence, with India working on setting up a Coastal Surveillance Radar System (CSRS) and providing defence equipment like Dornier aircraft to the country. Bilateral trade with the Seychelles, which has a population of just over 100,000, remains modest.