Maldives switches on real-time transfers to India

The Maldives Monetary Authority has launched the country's first real-time international payment corridor, connecting its national instant-payments system Favara to India's Unified Payments Interface. The service went live on Thursday, 30 July, with Bank of Maldives and Maldives Islamic Bank carrying the first phase.

Customers send rufiyaa or dollars through the mobile and internet banking they already use; the recipient in India is credited in rupees instantly. Transfers are capped at INR 24,000 — about US$250 — per customer per bank each month, and are limited to education, medical treatment, family maintenance and personal savings. The corridor runs outbound only for now, and no cash withdrawal is possible at the far end.

"From today, customers in the Maldives can send money to India instantly, securely, and at lower cost through digital channels," Deputy Governor Aishath Asna Hamdi said at the launch.

Governor Ahmed Munawar inaugurated the service at a ceremony attended by Foreign Minister Iruthisham Adam and the Indian High Commissioner, G. Balasubramanian. The link was built with NPCI International Payments Limited — the international arm of the body that runs UPI — and Payment Maldives Pvt Ltd, under an agreement signed a year ago.

The scale of the system the Maldives has just plugged into is difficult to overstate: UPI processed some 241.6 billion transactions worth around US$3.6 trillion in the last financial year. Only a handful of countries have live linkages of this kind into their national payment infrastructure.

The MMA says the service will extend to all Maldivian banks and payment providers, with a reverse India-to-Maldives corridor in testing and QR-based merchant payments — the phase that would matter most to Indian tourists — in final discussions.