Now Reading: Maldives’ Favara goes live with India’s UPI for cross-border transfers
-
01
Maldives’ Favara goes live with India’s UPI for cross-border transfers
Maldives’ Favara goes live with India’s UPI for cross-border transfers
NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL) and the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) have launched the Favara-UPI cross-border payment corridor, enabling real-time fund transfers from the Maldives to UPI-enabled bank accounts in India. The…
The Story in Brief
NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL) and the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) have launched the Favara-UPI cross-border payment corridor, enabling real-time fund transfers from the Maldives to UPI-enabled bank accounts in India. The service went live on July 30, 2026, starting with two banks: Bank of Maldives Plc and Maldives Islamic Bank Plc. Customers of these banks can send person-to-person transfers directly through their mobile banking apps using the Favara payment rail, the Finance Ministry said on Friday.
The integration, a result of collaboration between MMA, RBI, NIPL, and other stakeholders, is a milestone for digital financial connectivity between the two countries. Future phases will add QR-based merchant payments and other use cases. UPI is now accepted in nine countries, including Cambodia, Singapore, the UAE, France, Mauritius, Nepal, Bhutan, Qatar, and Sri Lanka.
The Indian Opinion
The Maldives-UPI link is being celebrated as a digital diplomacy win, but the real test is adoption. Only two Maldivian banks are live, and P2P transfers, not QR merchant payments, are the first phase. Until tourists in Male can scan RuPay or UPI at shops and resorts, the corridor remains a pilot, not a game-changer. The question is: how fast will the next phase of QR-based payments go live, and will Maldivian banks price the service competitively against existing remittance channels?
Source: thehindu.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
