Next time an Indian traveller visits Paris he can easily buy a ticket to the iconic Eiffel Tower by paying via the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

The initiative became possible after the NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) inpartnership with Lyra, a French leader in securing e-commerce and proximity payments, announced the acceptance of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment mechanism inFrance starting with the Eiffel Tower. 

The official announcement was made in Paris at an event organized by the Indian Embassyin France to celebrate the Republic Day of India. 

Jawed Ashraf, theAmbassador of India to France and Monaco, along with distinguished guests including PriscaThevenot, Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister and Government Spokesperson, France,Alain Lacour, President of the Lyra Group, Christophe Mariette, Commercial Director of LyraFrance, and Patrick Branco Ruivo, CEO of Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, graced theoccasion. 

This announcement is of particular significance considering that Indian tourists rank as thesecond largest group of international visitors to the Eiffel Tower. 
With this development, Indiantourists can make secure online transactions by simply using their UPI-powered apps to scanQR code generated on the merchant website and initiate a payment. 

When will be the service expanded in France?

NIPL said the service will soon be extended to other merchants in the tourism and retail space. 

This will make it significantly easier for touring Indians to remotely book hotels, museumsvisits, etc. for their stay in France.

Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NIPL, said, “At NIPL, our ambition is to enable acceptance of NPCI'spayment solutions in international markets and create a truly interoperable global paymentsystem. We aim at actively collaborating with financial institutions worldwide to establishpartnerships and provide consumers with convenient and secure cross-border paymentsolutions. Through this strategic partnership with Lyra, we have taken another step forwardtowards this goal.”

Christophe Mariette, Commercial Director of Lyra France, said, “It is a great pride to havethe trust of the Indian government and NIPL to launch UPI in Europe. We have been presentin India for 17 years, and this partnership confirms the strength of our collaboration with thisvast country. We also demonstrate our ability to stay ahead of market trends and strengthenour ambition to offer all payment methods used worldwide. For the players in the French andEuropean tourism ecosystem, this partnership represents a major advancement and thepromise of new business opportunities to come.”