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International visitor spending in India in 2023 was 14% below pre-pandemic levels. UPI One World wallet eliminates the need for international travelers to carry currency, and could boost tourism spending in India.
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India’s retail payments body National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched UPI One World wallet for international travelers visiting India.
The wallet aims to allow travelers to make payments using the instant mobile payments system Unified Payments Interface without requiring an Indian mobile number or bank account.
What Does This Mean? Introduced in 2023 during the G20 Summit in India and now being rolled out, UPI One World is a prepaid wallet that can be used to make digital payments to merchants across India in INR.
For Indian residents, the technology is used by linking the user’s phone number and bank account with a virtual payment ID to carry out bank-to-bank transactions instantly. It requires a user to scan a merchant’s QR code using their UPI app and enter their PIN to make the payment.
The UPI One World wallet forgoes this requirement for Indian number and bank account. According to NPCI, international travelers would be able to use the service with the help of authorized partners at Indian airports in select cities.
Travelers would only need to show their passports and visas as documentation. They would then be able to load the wallet in INR through their debit or credit cards or via foreign currency exchange at the issuer counter.
Increasing International Visitor Spending: Indian government’