The European Central Bank has entered the "realisation phase" for interlinking Europe's TIPS instant payment settlement engine with India's UPI and with Nexus Global Payments - moving from exploratory study to active implementation.
What's Being Built
Two parallel workstreams are underway. First, a direct TIPS-UPI bilateral link enabling instant EUR-INR payments. Second, a connection to Nexus Global Payments that would give euro area banks access to all Nexus-connected countries (currently India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand) through a single integration.
Swiss Connection
In September 2025, the ECB Governing Council also initiated an assessment of TIPS interoperability with Switzerland's SIC instant payment system, potentially adding CHF to the cross-currency instant settlement network.
Scale of Impact
India is one of the top recipients of remittances from Europe, making the TIPS-UPI corridor commercially significant. Connecting to Nexus would extend euro area reach across Asia-Pacific's largest instant payment markets without requiring separate bilateral integrations for each country.
What This Means
This signals Europe's strategic shift toward instant cross-border interoperability rather than relying solely on correspondent banking rails. For payments professionals, the TIPS-Nexus connection means that a single integration could eventually provide real-time, low-cost access to markets serving nearly 2 billion people.
Sources: Finextra, The Paypers