SBI launches BHIM SBIPay for foreign inward and outward remittances

By Leandra Monteiro

The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, with the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, launched the real-time payments system linkage between India and Singapore. The State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, has partnered in cross-border facilitation. 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.

Dinesh Khara, Chairman, SBI, expressed, “We are glad to be associated with this path-breaking 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.”

The UPI-PayNow linkage is a significant milestone toward the 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 USD 949 Mn as of 2021 (as per World Bank Bilateral Remittance Matrix Dec ‘22).

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