India and Singapore To Link Their Payments Systems (techcrunch.com) 11
India and Singapore are working to link their digital payments systems to enable "instant, low-cost fund transfers," in a major push to disrupt the cross-border transactions between the two nations that amounts to over $1 billion each year. From a report: The project to link India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Singapore's PayNow is targeted for operationalization by July 2022, both nation's central banks said on Tuesday. Users on either of the systems will be able to make transactions to one another without having to sign up to the second platform, the banks added.
That's not what 'disrupt' means (Score:3)
Re:That's not what 'disrupt' means (Score:4, Informative)
It will definitely disrupt if not completely eliminate the existing players like bitcoin, western union, or whatever is currently used in those countries legally or illegally to transfer money across border. Many of those money changers charge substantial fees and make millions doing something that will essentially become free after this link up.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly, this is the very definition of big business. Banks currently make a killing facilitating these transfers, charging up to 6.5%, and India and Singapore see over $1 billion a year in these transfers. That is a pile of money, no matter how rich you are.
Any sort of economic activity between these two countries just became much less expensive.
More importantly the current situation of multiple incompatible payment systems is untenable. Someone is going to win, and the systems that bridge large eco
Re: (Score:2)
Since Singapore and India signed CECA they have everything from miltary contact tie ups to joint shipping agreements. Their economies are quite symbiotically linked now.
I worked in Singapore for a few years, and saw a large contingent of low-cost Indian workers who use small money transfer shops.
But, grossly simplifying, in Singapore, Chinese finance it, Westerners do management, Filipinos d
Re: (Score:2)
The kind of transactions this link-up facilitates weren't really Western Union or Bitcoin in the first place.
Yeah, I'm not obviously not familiar with what method the transfer shops use in India or Singapore. I was using two of the more common ones that exist in the USA. I know some countries still use systems like hawala where money doesn't even physically transfer and the way I understand it is more of a gentleman's agreement.
Regardless, they all usually charge substantial fees. The article mentioned 6.5%. 6.5% of billions is a lot of money the middle men are currently making.
Re: (Score:2)
SWIFT is a political weapon.
It's being disrupted. But they should be using Ripple for scaling.
Need one standard (Score:3)
That global standard should also include a ban of putting any other services in the app or links to those other services. I would like an app to just for sending and receiving money.
All kinds of fun when trying to figure out what each payment method. One will have cash. Another Paypal. Another Zelle. Another CashApp. Another GooglePay. It is a fucking mess. None of them are link together so you have to create an account for each of them.
Re: Need one standard (Score:2)
All the payment apps in India have to include UPI which makes it effortless to pay anyone instantly regardless of which bank etc. So every bank has that in their app and the google pay, whatsapp payments, paytm type 10-15 apps.
Or u can use a govt app called bhim (pronounced bheem)
But I agree that many people still dont know that it's all interoperable and keep insisting you use the app they are using to pay them. But most small shops know its interoperable as they are given 5-6 large QR Code posters to sti
Dear Singapore... (Score:3)
Expect a significant increase in India scam calls.