Linking India’s UPI system with the Maldives’ Fahvara is a step that will take economic and trade relations between the two countries to a new height, India’s Ambassador to the Maldives G. Balasubramanian has said.

Speaking on the Ministry of Economic Development’s “Trade Desk with Ana” podcast, the Ambassador said that in the tourism sector alone, services worth approximately USD 300 million are exchanged between the two countries. He noted that while between 140,000 and 150,000 Indian tourists visit the Maldives each year, a large number of Maldivians also travel to India for education and medical treatment.

Regarding the work currently underway, the Ambassador said that efforts to link the Maldives’ instant payment system Fahvara with India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) — with the aim of establishing a system that enables easy cross-border transactions — are progressing at high speed. Once the two systems are linked, Maldivians travelling to India will find it much easier to make payments to hospitals and educational institutions in that country, he said.

Noting that UPI is India’s fastest-growing mobile payment platform, the Ambassador said more than 50 percent of mobile transactions in India are conducted through this system. He said the introduction of this powerful system to the Maldives will bring a revolutionary change to peer-to-peer commercial transactions, and will provide a permanent solution to the financial difficulties previously faced by Indian tourists visiting the Maldives and Maldivians travelling to India.

UPI is a digital payment system that links multiple bank accounts through a single mobile application, allowing secure, instant financial transactions. The Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA), the central bank, is undertaking the work required to introduce the system to the Maldives. MMA Governor Ahmed Munawwar has previously said the work of linking Fahvara with UPI is expected to be completed within this month.