On February 22, the State Bank of India (SBI) said it would allow real-time foreign inward and outward remittance services through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

“This link will allow money transfers from India to Singapore via registered mobile numbers and from Singapore to India using UPI ID,” it said in a statement.

The bank said users could use the facility through SBI’s BHIM SBIPay mobile app.

On February 21, private sector lender Axis Bank enabled real-time cross-border transactions using the UPI network. Six banks have been selected to settle the transactions – SBI, Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), Bank of India, ICICI, DBS Bank and Axis Bank.

The cross-border UPI transaction mechanism is part of a joint initiative of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to simplify payments between the two countries.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong launched cross-border payments on February 21 using their respective fast payment systems – India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Singapore’s PayNow connect.

The facility was launched by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das and Monetary Authority of Singapore Managing Director Ravi Menon through token transactions using the UPI-PayNow link.