# UPI-Aani
> Source: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/upi-aani
> research date 2026-06-03 · extracted at 2026-10-07
> Publisher: Barcoder — encyclopedia of QR, barcode and payment-code standards
Specifications:
- [India-UAE MoUs Link UPI With UAE's AANI For Instant Payment — Adda247](https://currentaffairs.adda247.com/india-uae-mous-link-upi-with-uaes-aani-for-instant-payment/)
- [Now, UPI To Be Linked With UAE's Instant Payments Platform AANI — Inc42](https://inc42.com/buzz/now-upi-to-be-linked-with-uaes-instant-payments-platform-aani/)
## Overview
The **UPI-Aani Linkage** is an agreed interlinking of India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) with the UAE's national Instant Payment Platform, **Aani**, to enable real-time cross-border payments and remittances between the two countries [1][1][2][2]. It is paired with a separate but complementary agreement to interlink India's **RuPay** card network with the UAE's domestic card scheme **JAYWAN** [1][1][2][2]. The arrangement rests on a July 2023 memorandum of understanding between the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE), and a formal agreement signed during PM Narendra Modi's UAE visit on 13 February 2024 [2][2]. The corpus documents Aani as the UAE's national instant payment platform (launched October 2023, operated by CBUAE subsidiary Al Etihad Payments) with a planned UPI link [United Arab Emirates report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/AE).
## History
In **July 2023** the RBI and the CBUAE signed a **memorandum of understanding** to interlink their payments infrastructure, agreeing to cooperate on connecting India's UPI with the UAE's Instant Payment Platform, Aani [2][2]. A formal agreement to this effect was signed during **Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the UAE on 13 February 2024**, witnessed alongside UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan [1][1][2][2]. The two governments committed to interlinking the national platforms — UPI (India) and Aani (UAE) — and, in parallel, to linking the RuPay and JAYWAN card networks [1][1][2][2]. Aani is operated by Al Etihad Payments, a CBUAE subsidiary, and went live as the UAE's national instant payment platform in October 2023 [United Arab Emirates report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/AE).
## Technical specification
**Linkage model.** The agreement covers interlinking the two **national fast payment systems** — UPI and Aani — to enable seamless real-time cross-border transactions [1][1][2][2]. (As of the February 2024 agreement, detailed message-level, identifier, and QR specifications had not been published.)
**Card-network leg.** Separately, **RuPay** (India) is to be interlinked with **JAYWAN** (UAE) to enable universal acceptance of RuPay cards across the UAE; the RuPay card stack was shared with Al Etihad Payments to help the UAE build sovereign card infrastructure [1][1][2][2]. Aani itself supports QR-based payments in the UAE [United Arab Emirates report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/AE).
## Use cases
- **Cross-border remittances.** The linkage is aimed at real-time cross-border remittance for the large Indian community in the UAE — estimated at around **3.5 million** resident Indian nationals — making the corridor strategically significant [2][2].
- **Travel and card acceptance.** The parallel RuPay-JAYWAN link is intended to give RuPay cardholders broad acceptance across the UAE, complementing the account-to-account Aani connection [1][1][2][2].
## Implementations
The arrangement is institutional. Principal parties are the **RBI** and the **CBUAE** (and its subsidiary **Al Etihad Payments**, operator of Aani), with **NPCI** providing the RuPay card stack [1][1][2][2][United Arab Emirates report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/AE). Specific participating banks and consumer apps for the UPI-Aani leg had not been enumerated in the sources reviewed [1][1][2][2]. The UAE corpus notes all major UAE banks were integrating Aani and lists the India UPI link as planned [United Arab Emirates report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/AE).
## Comparison
UPI-Aani most closely resembles **UPI-PayNow** (India–Singapore) in ambition — a **two-way account-to-account** connection between two national instant payment systems addressing a major remittance corridor — but, unlike PayNow, it was not yet live at the time of the reviewed sources and adds a distinctive **card-network leg** (RuPay-JAYWAN) absent from the PayNow arrangement [1][1][2][2]. It differs from the merchant-QR acceptance models of **UPI-LankaQR** and **UPI-KHQR**, which target Indian tourists scanning foreign merchant QRs rather than bidirectional remittance [1][1][2][2]. It is a **bilateral** RBI-CBUAE arrangement rather than a multilateral Nexus Global Payments membership, and narrower than the euro-area-wide UPI-TIPS settlement initiative [2][2].
## Fun facts
- The deal bundles **two distinct payment rails** — the UPI-Aani instant-payment link and the RuPay-JAYWAN card link — into a single India-UAE interoperability package [1][1][2][2].
- India's RuPay card stack was shared with Al Etihad Payments to help the UAE become **sovereign in digital payments**, mirroring how UPI/Bakong-style stacks have been exported elsewhere [2][2].
## Status
**Announced / in development.** The enabling MoU was signed in July 2023 and the formal interlinking agreement on 13 February 2024; the UAE corpus lists the UPI-Aani link as planned with Aani live since October 2023 [1][1][2][2][United Arab Emirates report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/AE). No full consumer go-live date for the UPI-Aani leg appears in the sources reviewed.
## Sources
[1] [India-UAE MoUs Link UPI With UAE's AANI For Instant Payment](https://currentaffairs.adda247.com/india-uae-mous-link-upi-with-uaes-aani-for-instant-payment/) — Adda247 Current Affairs, 2024
[2] [Now, UPI To Be Linked With UAE's Instant Payments Platform AANI](https://inc42.com/buzz/now-upi-to-be-linked-with-uaes-instant-payments-platform-aani/) — Inc42, 2024
[3] [Enabling Infrastructure build and Interoperability of payment systems between India-UAE](https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2062864) — Press Information Bureau, Government of India, 2024
[4] [UPI poised for widespread adoption in UAE as QR code payments become mainstream](https://ddnews.gov.in/en/upi-poised-for-widespread-adoption-in-uae-as-qr-code-payments-become-mainstream/) — DD News, 2024
[1]: https://currentaffairs.adda247.com/india-uae-mous-link-upi-with-uaes-aani-for-instant-payment/
[2]: https://inc42.com/buzz/now-upi-to-be-linked-with-uaes-instant-payments-platform-aani/
[3]: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2062864
[4]: https://ddnews.gov.in/en/upi-poised-for-widespread-adoption-in-uae-as-qr-code-payments-become-mainstream/
## Deployments
_No country reports mention this standard by name._
## Regions / aggregations not mapped to a single country
- India–UAE