NCPI says it is ‘not aware of any crypto exchange using UPI’
The National Payments Corporations of India (NPCI) on Thursday said that it is not aware of any cryptocurrency exchange using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for transactions.
“With reference to some recent media reports around the purchase of Cryptocurrencies using UPI, National Payments Corporation of India would like to clarify that we are not aware of any crypto exchange using UPI,” NPCI said in a statement.
NPCI is an umbrella organization for all retail payments and settlement systems in India. It should be noted that UPI crossed the $1 trillion mark in transaction values for financial year 202-22, with 5 billion transactions reported in March 2022.
The clarification comes immediately after Coinbase in an event on Thursday announced that it is launching a full scale crypto trading in India—and that its users will be able to use UPI for purchasing crypto.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong spoke about the new opportunities in Indian crypto startups and highlighted exchange’s plans of hiring and further expanding its business in the country.
“Coinbase Ventures has already invested $150 million in home-grown Indian technology companies in the crypto and web3 space, and is constantly identifying new opportunities to help Indian founders scale. Coinbase’s Indian tech hub was launched last year and already has over 300 full time employees across India’s state and regions,” the company said in its blog post authored Brian Armstrong.
“We are excited to tap into the dynamic Indian software talent to build out our products and will continue to invest heavily in our India hub. We have ambitious plans for India and seek to hire over 1,000 people in our India hub this year alone,” Armstrong added.
Meanwhile, the Indian government has imposed a 30 per cent tax from any profits generated via crypto trading, and a one per cent TDS on every intra day crypto transaction, starting April 1. Failing to comply with the new tax rules could land violators in jail for up to seven years.
