APAC Links Domestic Payment Systems to Reach New Markets

Asia-Pacific’s real-time payment systems are moving beyond domestic transfers as countries look to connect national infrastructure across borders.

The September 2026 PYMNTS Intelligence Real-Time Payments World Map, produced in collaboration with The Clearing House, shows that work taking two forms. Five countries are pursuing a common framework for connecting domestic instant payment systems, while India is exploring whether UPI can gain much broader international reach through Alipay+.

A national real-time payment system can reach banks, consumers and businesses inside one market. Extending that system internationally requires a way to connect it with payment infrastructure outside the country.

Project Nexus is designed to address that challenge through a common framework. The Bank for International Settlements-backed initiative is working to connect the national systems of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Instead of establishing a separate connection with each partner, participants would connect once and gain access to the wider network.

That structure changes the arithmetic of geographic expansion. Five payment systems connected only through individual bilateral relationships could require numerous separate links. A common framework seeks to make the network itself the point of connection.

For financial institutions and payment providers, the significance lies in what happens when another country joins. Under a bilateral model, geographic expansion can bring another technical relationship. Under the Nexus approach described in the report, the common framework is intended to provide access to the broader network through a single connection.

The report says that approach could reduce the delays and costs associated with routing payments through correspondent banks. More broadly, it suggests that the geographic reach of an instant payment system needn’t be determined solely by the number of individual foreign systems to which it has been directly connected.

India Tests a Different Route to Scale

India’s discussions over UPI and Alipay+ point to another model.

Government and central bank officials are reportedly discussing a connection between Ant International’s Alipay+ and India’s Unified Payments Interface for cross-border transactions. If completed, the connection could allow Indian travelers to use UPI at merchants in markets connected to Alipay+.

The potential reach is substantial. According to the report, Alipay+ spans more than 100 markets, approximately 1.8 billion user accounts and more than 150 million merchants.

That creates a different route to geographic expansion from Nexus. Nexus seeks to connect national instant payment systems through a common framework. The proposed UPI-Alipay+ arrangement would connect a large domestic instant payment system with a platform that already has broad international merchant reach. One builds connections among domestic payment systems. The other could give a domestic system access to an established network of merchants across scores of markets.

The distinction could become important as more real-time payment systems look outside their home countries. Building domestic scale and building international reach don’t require the same architecture. The report’s Asia-Pacific map already shows mature national systems across the region, including systems operating in Japan since 1973, Malaysia since 2006, Singapore since 2014, Thailand and Vietnam since 2016 and Indonesia since 2021.

The initiatives point toward a broader geographic test for real-time payments: whether systems built around domestic speed can acquire international reach without requiring a new payment relationship at every border.