PROJECT NEXUS
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has joined Project Nexus, a multilateral International initiative to enable instant cross-border retail payments by Interlinking domestic Fast Payments Systems (FPSs).
The linkage:
India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and FPSs of Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore and Thailand will be interlinked through Nexus.
Going ahead, the platform can be extended to more countries.
ABOUT PROJECT NEXUS
- Project Nexus is conceptualised by the Innovation Hub of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
- It seeks to enhance cross-border payments by connecting multiple domestic Instant payment systems (IPS) globally.
- It is the first BIS Innovation Hub project in the payments area to move Towards live implementation.
WASN’T INDIA COLLABORATING WITH OTHER COUNTRIES FOR PAYMENTS?
- The Reserve Bank of India has been collaborating bilaterally with various countries to link India’s Fast Payments System (FPS) – UPI, with their respective FPSs for cross-border Person to Person (P2M) and person to Merchant (P2M) payments.
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THESE BILATERAL MECHANISMS AFTER WE HAVE BECOME PART OF PROJECT NEXUS?
While India and its partner countries can continue to benefit through such Bilateral connectivity of FPS, a multilateral approach will provide further impetus to the RBI’s efforts in expanding the international reach of Indian payment systems.
HOW MUCH TIME DOES THE PAYMENT TAKE TO GET TRANSFERED?
In over 70 countries today domestic payments reach their destination in seconds at near-zero cost to the sender or recipient. This is thanks to the growing Availability of instant payment systems. Connecting these ips to each other can enable cross-border payments from sender to recipient within 60 seconds (in most Cases), according to the bis.
BENEFITS OF NEXUS
- Project Nexus is designed to standardise the way IPS connect to each other.
- Rather than a payment system operator building custom connections for every new country that it connects to, the operator can make one connection to the Nexus platform.
- This single connection allows a fast payments system to reach all other countries on the network.
- Nexus could significantly accelerate the growth of instant cross-border payments.
MEMBER COUNTRIES OF NEXUS
- Project Nexus aims to connect the FPSs of four Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) —
- Malaysia,
- Philippines,
- Singapore, and
- Thailand; and
- India, who would be the founding members and first mover countries of this platform.
- Indonesia is expected to join this platform in the future.
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