UPI in France: Indian tourists can now make payments in Rupees

By Gloria Methri

India’s unified payments interface (UPI) has now gone live in France, the National Payments Corporation of India announced on February 2nd.

NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) in partnership with Lyra, a French leader in securing e-commerce and proximity payments, has announced the acceptance of the UPI payment mechanism in France starting with the iconic Eiffel Tower.

Indian tourists can now book their visit to the Eiffel Tower by purchasing tickets online using UPI — making the transaction process quick, easy, and hassle-free.

This announcement is of particular significance as Indian tourists rank the second largest group of international visitors to the Eiffel Tower. Indian tourists can make secure online transactions by simply using their UPI-powered apps to scan the QR code generated on the merchant website and initiate a payment.

Acceptance of UPI in France not only provides Indian tourists with a seamless payment option but also opens up numerous opportunities for merchants across France and Europe operating in the tourism and retail sectors. While the Eiffel Tower is the first merchant to offer UPI payments in France, this service will soon be extended to other merchants in the tourism and retail space.

This will make it significantly easier for touring Indians to remotely book hotels, museum visits, etc. for their stay in France.

Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NIPL, said, “At NIPL, our ambition is to enable acceptance of NPCI’s payment solutions in international markets and create a truly interoperable global payment system. We aim to actively collaborate with financial institutions worldwide to establish partnerships and provide consumers with convenient and secure cross-border payment solutions. Through this strategic partnership with Lyra, we have taken another step forward towards this goal.”

Christophe Mariette, Commercial Director of Lyra France, said, “It is a great pride to have
the trust of the Indian government and NIPL to launch UPI in Europe. We have been present
in India for 17 years, and this partnership confirms the strength of our collaboration with this
vast country. We also demonstrate our ability to stay ahead of market trends and strengthen
our ambition to offer all payment methods used worldwide. For the players in the French and
European tourism ecosystem, this partnership represents a major advancement and the
promise of new business opportunities to come.”

With over 380 million users, UPI as a payment method has significantly marked its presence
in India. In January 2024 alone, UPI recorded over 12.2 billion transactions, emphasizing its widespread adoption.