Thibault Spitakhis was in Ahmedabad, as head of delegation of the Thailand basketball team playing the Under 18 Men’s FIBA tournament held in Gujarat in August. He decided to visit popular tourist spots around the city, but payment issues affected his plans, he said.With most places enabled with contactless payments, Spitakhis had to carry cash for small payments like entry tickets to tourist sites, since he was not prepared to pay by the Unified Payment Interface (UPI). The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) tournaments were held in Ahmedabad from August 13 to 23.“First of all, it is hard to find money exchanges in Ahmedabad. Credit cards don’t work in ATMs: we couldn’t withdraw money because there is some issue with the bank coordination. So we went to a shopping mall, but no one was there at the money exchange counter. We returned to the counter after an hour, but the situation remained the same. Finally, when the counter was open, we found the exchange rate very bad,” Spitakhis said.Several foreign tourists and NRIs The Indian Express spoke to shared similar experiences.Anya Bajaj from Zurich, Switzerland, who was in Ahmedabad to visit her family, said, “The biggest limitation is with small purchases. UPI is extremely common in India, but I don’t use it. Most of the small-time vendors don’t accept cards and it was very difficult as I only had larger denomination currency notes, most of the time. They might not have enough change, which can make a very simple purchase surprisingly inconvenient. For example, if you want to buy street food or something inexpensive from a small vendor, you need small denomination currency notes.”Must Read | How UPI became India’s biggest digital payments system — and its next challenge“Back home in Switzerland we have TWINT, the Swiss mobile payment system, apart from credit and debit card payments in almost all shops,” Anya said. “Contactless card payments are very common there, so I rarely need cash in my everyday life,” she says.Story continues below this adAsked about her preferred choice of payment in Ahmedabad, Anya said she prefers card or contactless payments whenever that option is available.“It’s more convenient because I don’t have to worry about carrying cash or having the correct change. However, I still use cash quite regularly in India, especially for smaller purchases.”At a café in Kudasan, Gandhinagar, Meghan Farley, a visitor from the United States, said she faced payment difficulties because she did not have an Indian mobile number. “I didn’t have an Indian phone number, so they didn’t give me a receipt for my transaction because they send the receipt directly to your phone number.” Asked whether it is easy to withdraw cash, she replied in negative. “I don’t have a bank account here. So I can’t get money from my American accounts here. It doesn’t work with the ATM,” she rued.Kevin Der-Antonion from Los Angeles, who was visiting his friend’s family in Ahmedabad, said he prefers paying in cash in India. “It’s been pretty good. I use cash and it’s pretty straightforward.” Asked about money withdrawal and foreign exchanges, he said he withdrew money before coming to India.Story continues below this adDeepika Gupta, who lives in Zurich and has roots in Ludhiana, Punjab, and frequently travels to India to visit her family, said she used to face payment issues for small purchases.“For normal retail purchases, it is easy. The challenge becomes more noticeable with small-time vendors, particularly private medical and healthcare facility payments, where international credit cards may not always be accepted and UPI/GPay/Paytm will be the preferred payment methods,” Gupta said.Gupta prefers contactless payments, but the “hassle” in setting up the UPI wallet makes her go back to cash, she said. She outlined the difficulties in regards to setting up a UPI and GPay saying, “Access to UPI-based services such as Google Pay or Paytm can be challenging for someone living abroad. Many services require an Indian mobile number linked to Aadhaar, so an international mobile number cannot simply be used in the same way.”“Without an Indian bank account/mobile setup, there can be greater dependence on cash or family members, particularly when a merchant does not accept international cards,” said Gupta.Story continues below this adNational Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella organisation for payments and settlement infrastructure in India, operates UPI One World, a wallet that allows foreigners and NRIs to make online payments. According to the NPCI website, it can be activated by downloading any of the prescribed apps and loading the wallet with Indian currency through debit, credit or forex cards. However, none of the people this newspaper paper spoke to had set up UPI One World.The payment issues of the foreigners and NRIs are expected to ease with the launch of UPI Global Reverse Acceptance system, which lets international tourists pay Indian shopkeepers and businesses using the payment apps they already use back home. Meaning, there is no need to open an Indian bank account or download a local payment app. For instance, Bank of Baroda (BoB) last month launched ‘UPI Global QR Payments’ (UPI Global Reverse Acceptance) for international tourists, overseas Indians, and foreign wallet/payment application users from eligible countries such as the US, UAE and Singapore, allowing them to make payments across its UPI QR merchant network in India.UPI, launched in 2016, completed 10 years this August 25. According to a recent government release, annual transactions through UPI expanded from 1.78 crore in 2016-17 to over 24,162 crore transactions in 2025-26, “representing an almost 13,000‑fold surge in transaction volume”. The value of transactions rose more than 4,000-fold, the release said.The commissioner of Tourism, Gujarat, recorded a total tourist footfall of 22.71 crore from April 2025 to March 2026, with Ahmedabad topping the list with 2.77 crore visitors.Story continues below this adAccording to the Ministry of Tourism’s compendium 2025, published in January 2026, foreign tourist Arrivals in India in 2024 were 99,51,722.(Fiona Faustmann is an intern at The Indian Express, Ahmedabad)