The European Central Bank is beginning efforts to link the Eurosystem’s Target Instant Payment Settlement (Tips) with India’s Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and other real-time payment systems across Asia.
This initiative aims to facilitate smoother payment transactions for businesses and consumers in Europe, especially for international remittances. The decision comes after positive findings from exploratory work conducted with Indian and other Asian payment interfaces since October 2024.
The ECB plans to enter the ‘realisation phase’ for integrating Tips with UPI while concurrently finalizing legal and technical arrangements. UPI is known for its significant volume of instant transactions, and India ranks among the top ten recipients of euro area remittances.
Additionally, the ECB will implement a similar strategy with Nexus Global Payments, a multilateral payment scheme that will initially connect the rapid payment systems of Bank Negara Malaysia, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Bank of Thailand, and the Reserve Bank of India.
Looking ahead, the ECB’s long-term ambition is to expand these efforts to additional currency corridors, as illustrated by an exploratory study with Swiss Interbank Clearing.