The central banks of India and Singapore will link their digital payment systems in order to make “instant, low-cost fund transfers”. The linkage, which is targeted for operationalisation by July 2022, is expected to incentivise more retail investors to access global markets and make fund transfer cheaper.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Tuesday announced a project to link their respective fast payment systems — Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and PayNow.

“The UPI-PayNow linkage will enable users of each of the two fast payment systems to make instant, low-cost fund transfers on a reciprocal basis without a need to get onboarded onto the other payment system,” the RBI said.