Mumbai, October 10 (IANS). Zimbabwe is in talks with NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) to license the technology for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as a common domestic system for real-time payments. This information was given in a report.
NIPL is the international arm of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the government company that operates UPI, and has brought UPI-like infrastructure to other countries.
Such a home-grown system would help banks, mobile-money operators and fintech companies clear transfers in real-time on a single public layer, reports 'India Narrative'.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John Mushayavanhu said the move could reduce costs, make transfers faster and provide an alternative to account-to-account payments instead of cards for small domestic transactions.
Mushayavanhu said that after this, the facility of cross-border use and remittance (sending money from abroad) can also start and negotiations with NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) can be completed by October 31.
Zimbabwe already has a large number of digital transactions, but there is no low-cost common payment system. Zimbabwe's national system processed 238 million electronic transactions in the fourth quarter of 2025, of which about 87 percent were via mobile money, and the number of active mobile-financial-services users was about 11 million.
“Inflows from citizens living abroad are expected to increase to $2.45 billion in 2025 from $2.15 billion in 2024. Britain and South Africa each account for just over a quarter of the total inflows by early 2025. These dollars are a source of household income and foreign exchange, and are the second largest source after mining,” the report said.
“The World Bank estimates the average cost of sending $200 to Sub-Saharan Africa in 2025 to be about 8 percent, compared with the global average of about 6.5 percent and the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of 3 percent,” the report said.
According to the report, the cost of sending money through the Southern African Development Community (SADC) route is even higher. It also says that the money lost due to middlemen is actually the loss of food and working capital of African people.
Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda and Mozambique have already expressed interest in working closely with NPCI, the report said. Besides, it has also been said that the countries which take the first steps in this will set such standards which other countries will be able to adopt.
–IANS
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