India, UAE Establish IIT Delhi-Abu Dhabi Campus, Sign MoUs for Financial Cooperation

New Delhi, India and Abu Dhabi, UAE: India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region’s first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), a branch of IIT Delhi, in Abu Dhabi. The Education Ministry of India, the Department of Education and Knowledge in Abu Dhabi, and IIT Delhi signed an agreement to establish IIT Delhi-Abu Dhabi in the UAE.

Against this backdrop, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, Foreign Secretary of India, said, “This is important for our bilateral education cooperation and for strengthening people-to-people ties. It would allow students, the Indian diaspora, the UAE system, and IIT Delhi’s top-rated education system to connect with UAE opportunities and strengthen this important pillar of our people-to-people partnership.”

Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, also signed two MoUs in Abu Dhabi to use local currencies for cross-border transactions and cooperate on payment and messaging systems. The revolutionary MoUs between India and the UAE were tweeted by Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs: MoU between @RBI & @centralbankuae for the establishment of a framework to promote the use of local currencies (INR-AED) for cross-border transactions. MoU between @RBI & @centralbankuae for the bilateral cooperation on interlinking their payment and messaging systems. MoU between @EduMinOfIndia & Department of Education and Knowledge, Abu Dhabi & @iitdelhi for planning to establish IIT Delhi – Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Central Bank of UAE (CBUAE) signed two MoUs to promote cross-border transactions using local currencies, the Indian rupee (INR) and the UAE Dirham (AED), and cooperation in payment and messaging systems’ interlinking. Shaktikanta Das, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, and Khaled Mohamed Balama, Governor, Central Bank of UAE, signed the MoUs in the presence of the Prime Minister of India and the UAE President.

According to the MOU on ‘Payments and Messaging Systems’, the two central banks confirmed to link their Fast Payment Systems (FPSs) – Unified Payments Interface (UPI) of India with Instant Payment Platform (IPP) of UAE; link their Card Switches (RuPay switch and UAESWITCH); and explore linking their payments messaging systems Structured Financial Messaging System (SFMS) of India with the UAE’s. Both countries may perform rapid, convenient, safe, and cost-effective cross-border fund transfers using UPI-IPP. Card Switches linking will simplify domestic card acceptance and transaction processing, whereas linking messaging systems facilitates bilateral financial messaging between the countries.

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