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I was in India earlier this year, and found there was no way (and I spent hours trying) for a foreigner to get access to the UPI system. This meant: 1) There w
by davelondon 3y ago
I was in India earlier this year, and found there was no way (and I spent hours trying) for a foreigner to get access to the UPI system. This meant:
1) There were some cashless fast food outlets that I couldn't eat at
2) There was no way for me to book an intercity bus ticket
I eventually managed to get a bus ticket by sweet-talking someone in a shop to use their personal UPI account in exchange for cash.
I fear there's going to be more problems like this for travellers as communities go cashless around the world.
- itsbits 3y agoNow Indian airports have outlets to create UPIs for foreigners visiting the country
- dilliwal 3y agoany source?
- Mandatum 3y agoCan’t wait to hand over my passport and drivers license to some random person after security wearing a uniform and holding an iPad after I get off an 8 hour red-eye. Surely nothing can go wrong.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sofixa 3y agoIt's the same as the kiosks to get a local SIM card which also often require ID. Also optional. > drivers license A driver's license is rarely accepted as a valid ID document outside of the US which rarely has anything better.
- Mandatum 3y agohttps://internationaldrivingpermit.org/how-to-apply/ https://internationaldrivingpermit.org/how-to-apply/
- master-lincoln 3y agoAn international driver license is not an id. It can be used to show to local law enforcement what vehicles you are allowed to drive. To use it you must have the original driver license with you too
- eddtests 3y agoThis is not as useful as you’d assume, some places just don’t acknowledge non-State ID’s regardless of what they try to sell you
- avianlyric 3y agoHave you ever seen and IDP? They’re a complete joke as an identity document, a child with a potato could forge one.
- flangola7 3y agoRarely has anything better? What does that mean?
- sofixa 3y agoLots of countries around the world have an ID card which is the default ID mechanism and is often mandatory to have (compared to say a driver's license, which many simply don't have because they never drive). The US doesn't widely have that, altough there are some slow efforts to that effect AFAIK.
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoYou'd be surprised how well a US Passport Card is accepted as an ID around India. Most people are just looking for something official in a card-sized format. There's no address, no real passport number on it. It's a more harmless document to identify yourself abroad.
- sudshekhar 3y agoThe physical verification process is required to respect the AML guidelines established by the RBI. The process itself takes less than 5 minutes but must be done once the foreigner lands in India. In Blr/Mumbai/Delhi, our team can arrange for home verifications as well. https://chequpi.com/ https://chequpi.com/
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoThis is very valid feedback - foreigners do not want to deal with this nonsense KYC stuff to make payments. No assurance is ever given that the passport details will be kept safe and not sold off to people doing identity theft stuff
- deskamess 3y agoReally? Which airports? I was there 2 months ago.
- illegalmemory 3y agoYou can soon do UPI even if you don't have Indian bank account, you can just download an app and connect any payment source to your UPI ID. https://inc42.com/buzz/japan-may-join-the-growing-list-of-countries-accepting-indias-upi-system/ https://inc42.com/buzz/japan-may-join-the-growing-list-of-co...
- devoutsalsa 3y agoAmerican here. I visited India in June of 2023. I tried using various apps to access UPI, but I was unable to figure it out. I couldn't find a way to connect a USA account (bank, credit card, PayPal, etc.) as a payment source. Hopefully it will be easier soon.
- deskamess 3y agoI was back there 2 months ago. That facility was not available and I was from one of the 20 countries that are allowed (you can specify a US/Can phone number). I downloaded PhonePe and PayTm. You at least needed a NRE (rupee) account. What seemed to work always was tap. But I think the tap amount was always < us 200. If you have guidance on how to setup Google Pay/other with UPI it would be appreciated. I even tried updating my Google Pay software to get the Indian version in the hope it would work. UPI is great and I hope it becomes worldwide. I think they started in France recently. If you are an Indian citizen/OCI holder encourage your foreign banks to get involved. I do not have much hope for Canadian oligopoly banks but if a bank in the US got it I would move some of my money there.
- perfopt 3y agoI have not seen a single eatery that does not accept cash. Booking bus tickets - RedBus and other portals accept credit cards. To use cash one must book at the terminal.
- devoutsalsa 3y agoI couldn't pay for lunch at my friend's office. They only accepted UPI as payment. It would have been nice to be able to pay for tuk-tuks and car taxis without using cash, too. If you only have "large" bills, the drivers never seem to have enough change.
- daniel-cussen 3y ago[dead]
- tamirzb 3y agoRedBus and many other Indian apps & websites don't accept foreign credit cards. It can become a real headache when traveling in India as a foreigner.
- kmlx 3y ago> I was in India earlier this year, and found there was no way (and I spent hours trying) for a foreigner to get access to the UPI system. never been to India. do they not support credit cards like the rest of the planet? visa/mastercard/amex? only UPI?
- chupchap 3y agoIt is accepted in most restaurants and shops, but for transactions of lower amounts UPI is preferred due to the fee involved with visa and mastercard
- berkes 3y ago"the rest of the planet" doesnt accept visa/Mastercard just anywhere and certainly not amex. In e.g. The Netherlands, mostly cashless society now, creditcards are hardly ever used by locals and so many POS won't have the infra to accept CC payments. The world is not the US and the US isn't the world.
- kmlx 3y ago> the rest of the planet" doesnt accept visa/Mastercard just anywhere most of the developed world does. even Eastern Europe have transformed themselves into a NFC bonanza. > The Netherlands the netherlands is the wrong example. it has always been an outlier when it comes to card payments. case in point: you can't even make a Visa/Mastercard payment in an AH supermarket, you need a Maestro card. > The world is not the US and the US isn't the world. i have travelled quite a bit. most the of the developed world (except for the Netherlands of course) has full support for Visa/Mastercard NFC. and Amex support is more and more spread (e.g. i have seen more and more Stripe in Greece lately). the world is moving on from the idea you have of it.
- avianlyric 3y agoVisa/Mastercard aren’t as ubiquitous as people imagine, despite Visa/Mastercard trying to acquire their way to global market dominance. The are many developed and developing countries that operate their own card networks, peer-to-peer payment technologies, and generally cheaper faster alternatives to Mastercard/Visa, with many merchants preferring them to their U.S. counterparts. Visa/Mastercard may have dominance in the English speaking west, and many tourists location for the English speaking west, but assuming Visa/Mastercard is some gold standard the world should aspire to is very naïve. In reality alternatives like UPI and other peer-to-peer systems are more likely to be the payment systems of the future. Continued Mastercard/Visa dominance in its current form only really makes sense in countries with outdated and inadequate banking infrastructure, like the U.S.
- eddtests 3y agoWhen I moved to Sweden I had the same issues because of a dependency on Swish and BankID (and personal ID numbers). It can be a real pain for things when you’re staying a little longer than a weekend and want to go to a gym for example. I went to one cafe where I literally had no way to pay as a foreigner
- daneel_w 3y agoA normal European debit card works everywhere. Cash-only establishments are uncommon. With that said I don't know how complicated the procedure is for a non-EU citizen to get a bank account (and with that a normal debit card) after moving to Sweden and having obtained a permit for residency. For EU citizens it's not a hassle.
- robin_reala 3y agoIf you move from another EU country this is the problem that EMPSA are trying (though with no visible success) to solve: https://empsa.org/ https://empsa.org/
- Tijdreiziger 3y agoI lived in Sweden for 6 months in 2018 and didn’t have any such problems. My Dutch Maestro debit card worked in all shops and cafés I visited, and online I was usually able to use a MasterCard. Personnummer was really only required for things like phone plans and store loyalty cards, which you don’t really need. I just used EU roaming on my Dutch SIM, but if you’re non-EU I believe you can get PAYG/prepaid SIMs without needing a personnummer.
- Leherenn 3y agoI don't know about Sweden in particular, but things have moved very quickly in this space, especially since Covid. It's very common that things that used to be cash only (food trucks, car parks, ...) have moved to $local_system since then.
- Tijdreiziger 3y ago
- vinay_ys 3y agoThere are two ways for a foreigners to use UPI. 1. If you are from one of G20 countries (for now, will expand to other countries), you can get a prepaid UPI digital wallet at the airport where you land. Just go to the money exchange counters and enquire about this. Airport information desk should help you as well. You don't need an India phone number or India bank account. You can load money into this prepaid wallet via your foreign account or credit card etc. You can use your passport as document for KYC purposes. This is most convenient for short visits. The UPI app issued will be by some forex company. When you leave India, whatever Rupee balance in the app will be refunded to you at the airport. The UPI apps that are most popular with Indians (GPay, PhonePe, PayTM) won't work for this. 2. If you are not from G20 or you are going to be in India for longer than a week, you are likely to get a local phone number. You can get a local prepaid phone number sim at the airport. Then, you can open a bank account in India, tied to that phone number. This account type is called NRO Rupee account – Non Resident Ordinary account. This entire process of opening an NRO account can be done at a bank branch physically or online via your mobile phone. Once you have that bank account, you can use any UPI app like any Indian does. See: 1. https://www.indiafilings.com/learn/opening-bank-account-india/ https://www.indiafilings.com/learn/opening-bank-account-indi... 2. https://rbi.org.in/scripts/FAQView.aspx?Id=16 https://rbi.org.in/scripts/FAQView.aspx?Id=16 3. https://wise.com/in/blog/upi-international-transfers https://wise.com/in/blog/upi-international-transfers
- signal11 3y ago1) is somewhat impractical, because it’s easy to miss the airport desk which does this, and if you miss the opportunity it’s not easy to go back there (Indian airports don’t really allow you back in if you’ve exited) 2) opening an account isn’t practical for tourists, but of course if you’re living in India for even a short while, it’s worth it. 3) Allegedly UPI will work for NRIs / OCIs with foreign phone numbers. In reality most banks haven’t implemented it yet. tl;dr - “onboarding” onto UPI for short-term visitors is mired in burdensome bureaucracy, and this isn’t a technical issue with UPI, it’s a result of conscious choices by Indian regulators. The real win would be if you could load up a UPI wallet like you’d do with PayPal. Perhaps initially restricted to people with a valid visa. But regulators haven’t figured that out yet.
- sudshekhar 3y agoHey @davelondon, Sudhanshu here, from Cheq UPI. We're a part of YC S23 and our team launched the Cheq UPI payments app specifically to help international citizens and NRIs avail UPI. https://chequpi.com/ https://chequpi.com/ Some testimonials from our early customers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ct5WY9vOz4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ct5WY9vOz4 We launched officially in August, and are growing fast. Next time you travel to india, do give us a try :) PS: We don't need an Indian bank account to help you make payments.
- fuzztester 3y agoWhat's the Cheq UPI business model? Standard VC-backed startup one, of get bought or IPO, or stay in biz and make profits. If profits, how?
- sudshekhar 3y agoThe goal is to build a sustainable business which helps customers enjoy the lowest cross border forex rates for purchasing in India. We're trying to stay away from unsustainable economics 1) Cheq charges a 10$ joining fees to everyone who activates their wallet. 2) We'll eventually charge an add money markup for topping up your wallet using an international card
- fuzztester 3y agoThanks for the info.
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoAs a foreigner who's lived in India for several years, what I'd really prefer is the ability to make payment using the instruments I have and not having to do a whole "KYC" process that no other country would ask me to. Context - within my home USA, I can open bank and credit cards accounts without ever even showing an ID. Having to ask very local shops to scan your passport/visa is an extremely uncomfortable request for people from abroad who have been told to protect that document from identity thieves their whole life. Nobody wants to give their address or phone number to a shopkeeper. I wish you guys all the best, but ultimately what India needs is more of those awesome Pine terminals which reliably take foreign cards and Apple Pay support. Then they get the lost card and chargeback protection they get everywhere else. So many foreigners are willing to come and spend money at small shops, why not better enable them to with the tools they have?
- blueblisters 3y agoI have friends who are Indians living outside. They don’t have a UPI account and find it difficult to get around when they visit India for a few weeks. The simplest solution would be an app that can use a credit card to load to a UPI compatible wallet. I’m guessing the market is not big enough for such a use case or the regulations are too onerous.
- pulse7 3y agoAnd this "more problems" is called "the future" and if you don't embrace it you are "so far behind on adoption of financial technology"...
- tavish1 3y agoThat is why I hate seeing people equating this to 'development' or some other metric of improvement. This excludes not just you, but people who do not have a phone, do not know how to use one, cannot use one, have access to just cash etc. In contrast, in Japan, they may have NFC payments by card/phone, online payments, but every single bus/train/cab/boat accepts cash as the lowest common denominator. Forget payments, all public offices still support paper + post for all procedures I've had to do, with the option of doing things with a phone or a PC. In India, however, for several things I've had to do, they would rip out the old system and replace it with a online portal with dubious implementation, and often disregarding laws (for example using UID number as legal identity proof, while it shouldn't have been, by law).