India’s United Payments Interface (UPI) wave has arrived in the UAE. Al Maya Supermarkets, a prominent grocery chain in the UAE, has recently announced the acceptance of UPI as a method of payment across its outlets. The inaugural UPI transaction was conducted in the presence of Yatin Patel, the Deputy Consul General of India in Dubai, and Kamal Vachani, Group Director and Partner of Al Maya Group. Al Maya’s step toward incorporating UPI into its payment ecosystem comes as the earliest initiative uniting India and the UAE, after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UAE earlier this year.
Kamal Vachani, Group Director and Partner of Al Maya Group, was thrilled to announce the integration of UPI into Al Maya’s systems. “The introduction of UPI will not only enhance the shopping experience for our customers but also strengthen the economic ties between India and the UAE.” This marks a significant advancement in the historical bilateral relations between India and the UAE.
The big Indian UPI boom
UPI was first introduced in the Indian digital payment sphere in 2016 by former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. India’s decision to launch UPI in the country was delayed by nearly a decade, during which its contemporaries like China launched AliPay to usher in the age of digital payments. Today, UPI has emerged as India’s most ideal, secure, and convenient way to pay.
The widespread acceptance of UPI is due to its ease and drastically lower cost of cross-border transactions to and from India. Ashish Chauhan, CEO of the National Stock Exchange of India, commented on the rapid growth of UPI in the subcontinent that led to “$1.7 trillion worth of transactions in fiscal year 2023.”
With $1.7 trillion worth transactions in fiscal year 2023, India’s UPI is becoming a global favourite. Many countries including Japan, Singapore, UAE, France, UK and Japan have shown their intention to embrace UPI.
Fiscal ending March 2024 is also seeing tremendous growth in… pic.twitter.com/yp4CPnDw38
— Ashish Chauhan (@ashishchauhan) October 18, 2023
By surpassing the perennial nature of physical cash transactions, UPI became the payment method of choice for nearly 300 million Indians. The ease and accessibility of UPI have allowed the digital payment phenomenon to reach hundreds of rural pockets across India. Experts such as Mehul Mistry, Global Head, Strategy, Digital Financial Services & Partnerships, and Wibmo, a PayU company, state that “UPI onnects over 300 banks and enables seamless financial transactions through TPAP (third-party application providers) like Google Pay, Amazon Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm in partnership with banking providers.”
In a post-COVID world, data protection and privacy have emerged as ever-evolving threats to users. UPI infrastructure is anchored on high-end encryption and a unique UPI PIN, which eliminates the need for users to disclose sensitive account information. India’s success with UPI has allowed it to leverage its homegrown digital payment interface to forge global relations.
The introduction of UPI in the UAE is predicted to bolster tourist transactions within the country. Vachani added that “with UPI’s proven track record and its growing acceptance worldwide, we are confident that this will pave the way for more seamless and efficient transactions, benefiting not just our customers but also the broader economy.” Prior to Al Maya’s UPI integration, UAE’s Network International had partnered with India’s NPCI International Payments Ltd. (NIPL) to enable QR code-based Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments across its point-of-sale (POS) terminals in the UAE.
