Al Ansari Exchange signs partnership with India’s NPCI International to offer real-time money payments system via Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
March 15, 2022 – Al Ansari Exchange, the UAE-based foreign exchange and worldwide money transfer company, recently signed an agreement with NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), the international arm of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to offer consumers real-time remittances to India. The agreement was signed by Rashed A. Al Ansari, CEO of Al Ansari Exchange and Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NPCI International Payments Ltd. (NIPL) at the Indian Pavilion in Dubai Expo 2020.
The partnership was sealed as Al Ansari Exchange continues to align its strategy to the joint UAE-India Vision Statement that aims to advance the India–UAE Comprehensive Strategic Partnership to new frontiers and new milestones.
Al Ansari Exchange’s customers will soon be able to connect to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), an instant real-time payment system developed by NPCI and operating at great scale (with 39 billion financial transactions in 2021). This partnership will facilitate real-time cross-border remittance to the beneficiaries in India, making cashless payments faster, easier and simpler, round the clock and 365 days a year.
Rashed A. Al Ansari, CEO of Al Ansari Exchange commented: “We are looking forward to bringing this partnership to life very soon and to being able to provide our large customer base of Indian Nationals in the UAE a solution to connect to the UPI infrastructure and facilitate real-time payments and remittances. Our new partnership with NPCI is part of our ongoing overarching digitalization efforts to further enhance our business efficiency and remittance services and enrich the experiences of our customers. It is also a testament to Al Ansari Exchange’s commitment to contribute to the growing bilateral relations between the UAE and India, in line with the directives of our country’s leadership.”
Ritesh Shukla, CEO, NIPL said, “India is the largest recipient of cross-border remittances, receiving over US$ 80 billion per annum. Our partnership with Al Ansari Exchange is aimed at offering easy, safe, and instant cross-border remittance facility leveraging UPI Ecosystem. We believe this initiative will provide seamless, and real-time cross-border remittance experience to 3.5 million Indians residing in the UAE. At NIPL, it is a constant endeavor, to add value to lives of consumers in the area of digital payments and we believe this partnership is a step forward in that direction.”
The United Arab Emirates is India’s third-largest trade partner while the South Asian nation is the Arab country’s number one non-oil trading partner. The two countries sealed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in February this year, which is expected to increase the value of their bilateral trade to USD 100 billion in the next five years. India is also one of the key remittance corridors for the UAE, owing to the fact that Indians comprise a large expat community in the Gulf state.
