New Delhi, October 14: NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), the international arm of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), on Tuesday said that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NTT DATA Japan, making a significant step towards Unified Payments Interface (UPI) acceptance in the Japanese market to enhance payment experience for Indian tourists.

Through this collaboration, NIPL and NTT DATA Japan will jointly assess and work towards facilitating UPI acceptance across NTT DATA-acquired merchant locations throughout Japan. UPI integration will allow merchants in Japan to offer faster checkouts, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive business growth. UPI Milestone: Digital Payment Platform Reaches 500 Million Users and 65 Million Merchants, Fuelling Growth for Micro and Small Enterprises in India; Report.

Ritesh Shukla, MD & CEO of NPCI International, said, “The MoU with NTT DATA lays the foundation for enabling UPI acceptance in Japan. This partnership is an important step toward improving the digital payment experience for Indian travellers and simplifying cross-border payments." It also reflects our ambition to take UPI to more international markets and establish it as one of the most trusted digital payment systems globally, he added.

NTT DATA Japan is a core subsidiary of the NTT DATA Group, which is a Tokyo-based leading IT and business services provider. It operates CAFIS, Japan’s largest card payment processing network. The rapidly increasing significance of this MoU is demonstrated by the fact that over 208,000 Indian visitors visited Japan between January and August alone, a 36 per cent increase over the same period in 2024 (152,947 visitors).

Indian tourists will be able to use their well-known UPI apps to scan QR codes and make easy payments at merchant locations that NTT DATA has acquired after UPI was introduced to the Japanese market, NPCI said. “This collaboration marks an important milestone as we expand payment choices for inbound travellers from India,” Masanori Kurihara, Head of Payments in Japan, NTT DATA said. Digital Transaction Contribute 99.8% of India’s Retail Payments in Q1 FY26, UPI, AePS and IMPS Dominate: Report.

“By initiating the partnership for UPI acceptance in Japan, we aim to make shopping and payments more convenient for Indian tourists, while helping Japanese merchants capture new opportunities,” he added.

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