India, March 29 -- The Centre has reportedly urged money laundering watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to relax compliance mandates for cross-border payments via Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

News agency Reuters, citing sources, reported that Indian officials raised the matter at an FATF conference in Mumbai earlier this week.

As per the report, the sources said that the Centre's plans for the expansion of UPI cross-border payments have been hindered by compliance requirements for "smaller players". They highlighted that SWIFT (a secure messaging network facilitating global financial transactions) and payment networks like Visa and Mastercard are exempted from such rules.

Noting that global anti-money laundering rules "in ...