Fed Governor Christopher Waller On UPI-USD Interlinking: US System Needs More Development

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher J. Waller addressed the potential for interlinking payment systems between the US and India. He acknowledged the success of India's digital payment infrastructure and expressed admiration for its technology stack. However, Waller highlighted that the US payment system is not yet advanced enough to support such interlinking. He estimated that it will take another couple of years to fully develop and expand the US system to enable seamless transactions between the two countries. Waller emphasized that while the concept of interlinking is feasible, it remains a distant goal until the US system is adequately built. He plans to incorporate insights from India's successful digital payment model to enhance the US payment infrastructure. Christopher J. Waller, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System said, "I can say we can do interlinking but our system isn't developed yet. So, it's a bridge to nowhere. Nothing is going to move until we get our system completely built up...It's going to take us another couple of years to fully expand our system. So, if you want to send a payment from India to anywhere in the US, it will get there or vice versa. But we are not there yet. So, it is just a matter of building our network..."