NEW DELHI: The Ministry of External Affairs and the SBI have signed an MoU to provide an additional digital payment service of the bank through its payment gateway SBIePay to users of the eMigrate portal, including Indian migrant workers and recruiting agents, officials said on Saturday.

This agreement would "further facilitate and enhance the ambit of safe and legal migration of Indian migrant workers", according to a statement issued by the ministry.

Since its launch in 2014, the eMigrate project has been assisting Indian workers going to emigration check required countries for employment by making the emigration process online and transparent, and to bring foreign employers, registered recruiting agents and insurance companies issuing the Pravasi Bhartiya Bima Yojna on one common platform to facilitate seamless, safe and legal migration, it said.

The portal also has a mechanism for voluntary registration of emigrants holding ECNR category passports proceeding for overseas employment, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement said.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Bramha Kumar, Joint Secretary (OE & PGE) on behalf of the ministry and Neelesh Dwivedi, General Manager (NW-I), from the SBI's side at the Sushma Swaraj Bhawan here.

The MoU seeks to "provide an additional digital payment services of the SBI through payment gateway called SBIePay to Indian migrant workers, recruiting agents and other users of the eMigrate portal ( https://emigrate.gov.in)", it said.

It will be operational soon after successful integration of the SBIePay with the eMigrate portal, the officials said.

"Through implementation of this MoU, payment of various emigration related fee would be possible with NIL transaction charges for payment through UPI, credit/debit cards and NEFT through net banking of all Indian banks. Signing of this MoU would further facilitate and enhance the ambit of safe and legal migration of Indian migrant workers," the statement said.