Coinbase suspends newly launched crypto payment services in India

Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange platforms globally, has announced it will halt payment services made through the United Payments Interface (UPI). The exchange halts this service three days after it was launched for Indian users.

UPI is a payment portal headed by the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI). The platform facilitates crypto buy orders on Coinbase India.

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Coinbase suspends UPI payments for Indian users

The exchange has updated the details of the payment on its website for Indian users. The update urges users on the exchange to use the Immediate Payment Service (IMP) to create sell orders.

The NPCI is a division at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) serving under the Ministry of Finance. Business Standard issued a report on Monday saying that Coinbase would work to fix the situation in India with the relevant regulators. It also said that the platform was “committed to working with NCPI and other relevant authorities to ensure that we are aligned with local expectations and industry norms.”

The NPCI issued a statement last week saying that it did not recognize the legality of any cryptocurrency exchange using the RBI UPI. This statement could be behind Coinbase’s move to suspend its services to Indian users.

The NCPI statement read,

With reference to some media reports around the purchase of cryptocurrencies using UPI, National Payments Corporation of India would like to clarify that we are not aware of any crypto exchange using UPI.

Indian users are not troubled by the news

Users of Coinbase in India have not been affected by this statement by the NCPI. Aditya Singh, the co-founder of the Crypto India YouTube channel, has said that this was not a new technique and that Indian exchanges have been facing issues with payment services since 2018.

The Indian crypto regulatory framework has been facing uncertainty for several months now. Towards the end of last year, it appeared as if the government would ban cryptocurrencies, but this did not happen. Instead, the government introduced a 30% tax on crypto trading, and this tax was implemented on April 1.