ECB Begins Work to Link Europe’s TIPS with India’s UPI and Nexus Global Payments

The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched a new phase of work aimed at interlinking the Eurosystem’s Target Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) platform with India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and several other real-time payment networks across Asia.

According to the ECB, this initiative is part of a broader strategy to simplify cross-border transactions for individuals and businesses in Europe. The goal is to enable faster, more efficient transfers — including remittances — between Europe and major Asian markets.

This decision follows encouraging results from exploratory assessments conducted with India and other Asian payment systems beginning in October 2024. With these findings validated, the ECB plans to move into a “realisation phase” for connecting TIPS with UPI. At the same time, it will finalize the legal and technical frameworks required for the integration. UPI is one of the world’s most active instant-payment networks, and India remains one of the top ten destinations for euro-area remittances.

The ECB will adopt a similar approach with Nexus Global Payments, a multilateral payments framework designed to interconnect the instant payment platforms of Bank Negara Malaysia, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Bank of Thailand, and the Reserve Bank of India.

Looking ahead, the ECB aims to expand this effort to additional currency corridors. It highlighted ongoing exploratory work with Swiss Interbank Clearing as an example of future expansion opportunities.

Reference: Finextra.