UPI set to go live in Japan for Indian tourists

UPI will soon be available in Japan. NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), the international branch of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NTT DATA Japan.

As of October 2025, the UPI is now operational in 13 countries, facilitating seamless digital transactions for Indian travellers and expatriates. The latest country to adopt UPI before Japan is Qatar, which officially launched UPI services on October 8, 2025.

NTT DATA Japan is a major subsidiary of the NTT DATA Group and a leading provider of IT and business services based in Tokyo. The MoU lays the groundwork for a strategic partnership, marking a key step toward enabling UPI acceptance in Japan and improving the payment experience for Indian travellers.

The NPCI press release states that NTT DATA Japan is a leading player in the payments ecosystem and operates CAFIS, Japan’s largest card payment processing network. CAFIS connects a wide range of acquirers, issuers, merchants, and ATM operators across the country, providing the backbone for Japan’s payment infrastructure.

Through this collaboration, NIPL and NTT DATA Japan will jointly evaluate and work toward facilitating UPI acceptance across NTT DATA-acquired merchant locations throughout Japan. UPI integration will enable merchants in Japan to offer faster checkouts, improve customer satisfaction, and foster business growth.

Between January and August 2025 alone, over 208,000 Indian visitors traveled to Japan, a 36% increase compared to the same period in 2024 (152,947 visitors), highlighting the rapidly growing importance of this corridor. Following the introduction of UPI in the Japanese market, Indian tourists will be able to make seamless payments at merchant locations acquired by NTT DATA by scanning QR codes using their familiar UPI applications, as stated in the press release.

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 enhancing the digital payment experience for Indian travellers and streamlining cross-border payments. It also reflects our ambition to expand UPI to more international markets and establish it as one of the most trusted digital payment systems worldwide.”

“This collaboration marks an important milestone as we expand payment choices for inbound travellers from India,” said Masanori Kurihara, Head of Payments in Japan, NTT DATA. “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.”

This MoU highlights NIPL’s dedication to advancing secure cross-border payments and creating a more inclusive global payment ecosystem through UPI, per the press release.