New Delhi, Oct 24 (IANS): The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a MoU signed between India and Singapore to establish a joint working group to strengthen bilateral cooperation in financial technologies.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between India's Department of Economic Affairs and the Monetary Authority of Singapore during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Singapore in June this year.

"Collaboration of India with Singapore will benefit both India and Singapore to excel in the fields of development of Application Programming Interfaces (APls), regulatory sandbox, security in payment and digital cash flow, integration of RuPay-Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS), UPI-FAST payment link, Aadhaar Stack and e-KYC in the ASEAN region and cooperation on regulations, solutions for financial markets, insurance sector and sandbox models," the government said in a statement.

Singapore payment system operator NETS has partnered with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to establish a cross-border payment linkage between Singapore's PayNow and India's Immediate Payment Service (IMPS).

This partnership is aimed at boosting trade, tourism and remittances through real-time fund transfers between bank accounts in the respective countries.

The terms of references of the JWG include exchange of best practices to improve regulatory connect, promote experience sharing on fintech policies and regulations, encourage creation of standards on use of data by fintech firms and promote cooperation between the financial technology industry in India and Singapore.