NPCI International and Central Bank of Seychelles Sign UPI MoU

NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) and the Central Bank of Seychelles signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 28 June 2026 to introduce Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in Seychelles. The agreement was one of nine bilateral pacts signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the country.

What Changed

The MoU establishes a framework for technical cooperation to enable UPI-based merchant payments in Seychelles. Once implemented, Indian travellers will be able to scan QR codes at participating Seychelles merchants using any UPI-linked app, with payments deducted directly from Indian bank accounts and settled in real time — eliminating foreign currency exchange for eligible transactions. For Seychelles, where tourism is a major GDP contributor, the move creates a new cashless payment channel for Indian visitors.

This is not a live deployment. The MoU does not specify which Seychellois banks or payment service providers will participate, nor does it include a merchant rollout plan or a timeline for QR availability. Those details will be finalised during the technical integration phase between NIPL and the Central Bank of Seychelles.

Who Is Affected

• Indian travellers to Seychelles will benefit once terminals are live, similar to existing UPI acceptance in Singapore, UAE, France, Mauritius, Bhutan, Nepal, Oman, and Qatar.
• Seychelles merchants in the tourism sector will be able to accept real-time payments from a growing Indian tourist market.
• Payment service providers in both countries will need to coordinate on interoperability, settlement, and compliance with local forex regulations.

Implementation Timeline

Live payments are not yet available. Based on historical precedent, UPI MoUs typically take several months to over a year to result in operational QR deployments. India has signed 23 Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) cooperation agreements with other nations as of February 2026, including Sri Lanka (implementing UPI and DigiLocker), Trinidad and Tobago (first Caribbean UPI adopter), Guyana, and Kenya (first African DigiLocker adopter).

Operators monitoring cross-border payment expansion should track technical integration announcements from NIPL and the Central Bank of Seychelles for bank onboarding and merchant rollout details.

Source: India and Seychelles sign UPI agreement; live payments not yet available
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