India, Brazil explore collaboration on digital payment systems amid solidarity push

Time of India

10 hours ago

India and Brazil are exploring collaboration on
digital payment systems
, an issue that figured prominently during
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
's phone call with
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
on Thursday.
The development assumes significance in the backdrop of US President Donald Trump's unilateral imposition of tariffs against both India and Brazil. While India's
Unified Payments Interface
(UPI) has drawn global attention, Brazil has an equivalent called Pix, a real-time payment system launched by the Central Bank of Brazil in late 2020, which had become the dominant payment method in the country. With Pix rapidly gaining popularity, US banks fear losing market share, according to people in the know.
During Thursday's phone call Modi and Lula also reiterated the goal of increasing bilateral trade to more than $20 billion by 2030 from $12.2 billion in 2024-25.
"To this end, we agreed to expand the scope of the agreement between
MERCOSUR
and India. We exchanged information on the virtual payment platforms of our two countries, including Pix and India's UPI," Lula said in a social media post. MERCOSUR, or the southern common market, is a trading group established by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Like UPI, Pix has been credited with promoting
financial inclusion
by making it easier for more people to access and participate in the formal financial system. With the growing business collaboration between India and Brazil, partnership between UPI and Pix can boost entrepreneurs of both countries, said the people cited earlier.
Pix enables near-instantaneous transfers of funds between any bank account, including demand, savings and prepaid payment accounts, and has rapidly surpassed traditional options such as cash and credit cards.