I really hope cash transactions become a little more normalised in India.

The UPI experience is built for a single audience in mind. It has changed the way people transact in India but at the same time it's been an absolute nightmare for a tourist to play along. The only route for a tourist to use UPI is via third party apps, which charge a markup for loading money (3%). But let's say you accept that as a part of travelling - the limitation of tourist wallets is that they can't be utilised for P2P payments - exactly what UPI is most used for across the country.

Alternative, since no one accepts cash anymore, is that I have to carry thick wads of cash so I can hand out exact change. That still gets you the stink eye because most vendors don't like to deal with cash anymore.

> the limitation of tourist wallets is that they can't be utilised for P2P payments - exactly what UPI is most used for across the country

Same issue in a lot of Southeast Asia. After jumping through all hoops to get the correct app, id verified and paying a hefty fee, it was still a gamble if the restaurants would have a business QR code or a personal one.

One time in Laos I was on an island that didn't have an ATM, almost no cards were accepted and I had run out of local currency. So I ended up asking for the QR code before ordering at the restaurant to make sure it would work out.

In India it's super annoying when taking autos because the drivers won't have change and in 99% of the cases they have a personal code. So I just ended up using Uber with credit card, much less hassle.

I don't know, central banks seem super afraid of money laundering somehow. But just allow me to spend $100 or what, I just want to buy a quick coffee or a fruit from a street vendor, not a Rolex.

Sounds like it would be easier to hope for a better UPI experience for tourists.

In 2026, you think cash could become more common instead of less? There is no way that happens unless they jack the fee up and even then…

> P2P payments

Some P2P is between family/friends. Or you are paying rent etc. But a lot of it is business transactions that move funds from one savings account to another because the auto driver is accepting a payment in his mother's or wife's account or something similar. There is so much friction in the banking system if you have to create a current account that this is pretty common.

The system needs to improve drastically to support the two sides instead of letting it be. Should help your use case as well if that happens

Don't visit India, problem solved.

> The only route for a tourist to use UPI is via third party apps, which charge a markup for loading money (3%).

Or a credit card.

I mean this sounds like an edgecase, which is good tradeoff for the ~billion of people who this system is designed for.

Essentially UPI was there to stop the industrial fraud and money laundering that was going on india. I have not actually checked the efficacy of this though. The last time I checked was when modi made the largest bank note not legal tender.

That part aside it does sounds like VAT (a 20% sales tax on all purchases) but for transactions.

> it's been an absolute nightmare for a tourist to play along.

But the solution to this should be to simplify the tourist experience and to allow payments from foreign banks and cards. Traveling to China has a huge hassle in the late 2010s due to everyone local switching to WeChat/Alipay but it not being available for tourists, but in the last few years (I last visited in 2023), you could use WeChat/Alipay with a non-China bank card.

> which charge a markup for loading money (3%).

.... the markup being what the credit card companies charge them.

> it's been an absolute nightmare for a tourist to play along. The only route for a tourist to use UPI is via third party apps

An NRI account with PhonePe is good enough as someone with OCI, but even in my ancestral town and village Visa and AmEx adoption by payment processors has been high despite no real diaspora or tourism.

And there's no real point in optimizing for the kind of tourist who's going to go visit a slum like Paharganj or go to Kasol to partake in drugs.

That said, I guess it also depends on where an NRI or PIO is from as some states have better payment processor penetration than others.

But tbf, when my SO and I go to VN to visit family, it's the same story there (Momo/Zalo and cash rule Vietnam outside the tourist bubble of D1/D3/Thao Dien/Da Lat/Da Nang/Hanoi).