Mumbai/Toulouse, 2nd February 2024: NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) in partnership with Lyra, a French leader in securing e-commerce and proximity payments, has announced the acceptance of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment mechanism in France starting with the iconic Eiffel Tower. Indian tourists can now book their visit to the Eiffel Tower by purchasing tickets online using UPI — making the transaction process quick, easy, and hassle-free.

Acceptance of UPI in France not only provides Indian tourists with a seamless payment option but also opens numerous opportunities for merchants across France and Europe operating in the tourism and retail sectors. While the Eiffel Tower is the first merchant to offer UPI payments in France, this 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, museum visits, etc. for their stay in France.

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