UPI Enters Japan: NPCI’s International Arm Signs MoU with NTT Data to Enable Payments for Indian Tourists

NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Japan’s NTT Data to enable Unified Payments Interface (UPI) acceptance at merchants served by NTT Data.

The arrangement is aimed mainly at making payments simpler for Indian tourists in Japan. Travellers will be able to scan QR codes with their familiar UPI apps to pay at participating merchant locations.

Under the agreement, UPI acceptance will initially be limited to transactions by Indian tourists at merchants using NTT Data’s payment services. NIPL and NTT Data also plan to jointly explore broader opportunities to “enable” UPI across the Japanese market over time, the companies said, with technical and commercial assessments to follow.

NIPL’s First East Asia Launch

The pact marks NIPL’s first formal entry into East Asia and expands UPI’s international footprint to some 20 partners across nine countries, including Singapore, France, Nepal and Bhutan. NTT Data, which operates CAFIS, Japan’s largest card-processing network, will assess how UPI can be integrated across its acquired merchant base and payment infrastructure.

Ritesh Shukla, MD & CEO of NIPL, said the MoU lays the foundation for improved digital payments for Indian travellers and reflects NIPL’s ambition to make UPI a globally trusted system. Masanori Kurihara, head of payments at NTT Data Japan, said the initiative aims to make shopping and payments more convenient for Indian tourists while helping Japanese merchants attract new customers.

The partners noted that Indian tourism to Japan is rising: more than 208,000 Indians visited Japan between January and August 2025, a 36% increase year-on-year.

Domestic Innovation

The MoU comes as NPCI and NIPL continue to push product innovation at home. At the Global FinTech Festival 2025, NPCI unveiled pilots for agentic AI payments, Reserve Pay, Banking Connect, on-device biometric authentication for UPI and IoT-enabled payments.

Meanwhile, domestic UPI volumes remain large: monthly transactions in India eased to 1,960 crore in September after peaking at 2,010 crore in August, but they are up about 31% year-on-year from September 2024.

By pairing India’s instant-payments rail with a major Japanese processor, the deal lowers friction for outbound Indian travelers and gives Japanese merchants a low-cost route to capture tourist spend.

For NIPL, the partnership deepens its strategy of incremental international rollouts, offering cross-border convenience without full-scale localisation, while providing a template for similar tie-ups in other markets.