India has frozen a proposed connection between the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Alipay+, Ant International’s cross-border payments network, after national-security, data-protection and India-China tensions complicated the project. Discussions began on February 2, 2026, following a proposal described in earlier reporting as having been submitted in January. The plan would have allowed Indian travellers to use UPI at Alipay+ merchants abroad, with a potential second phase enabling international visitors to use Alipay+ in India. Alipay+ connects roughly 1.8 billion user accounts with more than 150 million merchants across over 100 markets, while UPI processes nearly 18 billion domestic transactions each month. Indian authorities have sought extensive reviews of banking readiness, cybersecurity, transaction-data processing and storage, dispute resolution, money-laundering risks and possible data breaches. As of September 2026, the integration remains on hold. India already has international UPI arrangements with the UAE, Singapore and several South Asian nations, but its financial-services sector remains particularly cautious toward China-linked firms after the 2020 border clash. The delay leaves travellers dependent on cards outside existing bilateral arrangements, while wider regional payment-linkage efforts continue amid projected growth in Asia-Pacific cross-border payments.