New Delhi: Bhutan on Tuesday becomes the first country to adopt a standard Indian payment interface (UPI) for fast response code (QR).
In a virtual ceremony, Finance Minister Union Nirmala Sitharaman and his colleague Bhutan, Lyonpo Namgay Tshering jointly launched the BhiM-UPI in Bhutan.
Bharat interface for money (BHIM) is an Indian digital payment application that works through UPI, which is an instant real-time payment system.
UPI allows several bank accounts into one cellular application.
Bhutan is also the first country in the neighborhood near India to accept mobile-based payments through the Bhim application.
As part of the launch, Sitharaman made a direct transaction using the Bhim-upi to buy organic products from Ogop Bhutanese outlets, which sell fresh farm products made organically by local communities in Bhutan.
With the launch of the current Bhim-upi in Bhutan, payment infrastructure from both countries is connected smoothly and will benefit a large number of tourists and entrepreneurs from India who travel to Bhutan every year, the Ministry of Finance said.
This will increase the ease of life and the convenience of traveling through transactions without cash with a touch of a button, he added.
When talking on that occasion, Sitharaman said the service had begun in Bhutan under the first policy of the Indian environment.
“There can’t be a better place to launch it because every Indian tourist who goes to Bhutan away feeling warm to the soil of happiness,” he said.
The Minister of Finance said that Bhim UPI was one of the smartest places and achievements for digital transactions in India during the Covid-19 pandemic period with more than 100 million UPI QRS has been made in the last five years and Bhim UPI in 2020-21 has processed 22 billion transactions Worth Rs 41 Lakh Crore.
“Bhim-upi is one of the achievements of India in terms of Fintech where India has invested a lot & we also pushed our initial to come up with a solution.
Therefore, the Bhim-Upi stands out as one of the very successful experiments we have done,” he said.
Meanwhile, tshering thanked and appreciated the Indian government for the launch of the Bhim-UPI service in Bhutan and added that the bonds between the two countries had become stronger with every day passing.
This launch meets the commitment made by the two countries during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Bhutan in 2019.
After the visit of PM Modi, India and Bhutan have enabled the operability in the acceptance of Rupay cards in two phases – Rupay card receipts are issued in India in the terminal Bhutan based in the first phase, and vice versa in the second phase